Thursday night the Principality of Monaco celebrated the women who work each day to create a better world.
They were all reunited Thursday evening at the Indigo for the traditional Monte-Carlo Women of the Year 2017 Prize Giving. 160 guests attended, including the Minister of Infrastructure, Environment and Town Planning, Marie-Pierre Gramaglia, the High Commissioner for the Protection of Rights, Freedoms and Mediation, Anne Eastwood, High Commissioner of the Rights of Women and Families, Nathalie Amoratti-Blanc, and finally Vice-President of the Walgreens Boots Alliance, Ornella Barra, who sponsored the event.
Every year there is a different theme; after Women and Technology in 2016, the Commission decided to honor the women who defend women’s rights, as the debate on the equality of the sexes is ever-present. There are many women who fought for these rights in our community, to say the least, and in a spectacular manner. “We received a great deal of applications”, explained Cinzia Sgambati-Colman, founder of the event, “we had difficult time selecting only a few”.
The wonderful thing about this event is that its not the women who send in their applications, but ambassadors situated all over the world as well as those in their close circle of friends who admire their efforts and nominate them.
Monaco Award received Anne-Marie Salomon is better known as ‘Sister Anne-Marie. She is religious, has a degree in mathematics and physics and is also a doctor. She works in Mali where she’s opened a Nomad Hospital that tends to 30 000 patients each year, affected by aids, malaria, leprosy or tuberculosis. She helps build schools and trains care givers and midwives.
International Prize was awarded to Aïcha Chenna, a trainee nurse, who declared that when we disrespect women we disrespect something sacred. In order to help women become emancipated and become independent, she created the Association for Female Solidarity in Morocco. She helps women enter the working world by training them for useful jobs, such as in hospitality, beauty schools and hairdressing, to make them autonomous and therefore free.
And Michele Mitchell, journalist, author and American cineaste received the Special Award. She was the youngest woman responsible for communication for the American Congress, and was applauded for her brilliant investigative work for the 2013 documentary Haiti, Where has the money gone? She also co-directed the film The Uncondemned about a Rwandan politician involved in the rapes that took place during the genocide.
Photo: Twitter
