UNASB President Sharon Byrne announces the 2024 Peace Prize will be awarded to Jane Olson September 21, 2024 on International Day of Peace. Our 8th Annual Peace prize will be presented at Pascucci Restauant in Santa Barbara, CA. at an afternoon event 4-5:30pm. (tickets UNASB.org)
We are blessed to have Jane Olson, living in our local community. She is a dedicated human rights advocate that took it upon herself to go out into the world and observe and record human rights violations in conflict and terrible situations, with Human Rights Watch.
She was never paid to do this – it was all volunteer, a truly selfless expression of love for the world. In her book, World Citizen, Journeys of a Humanitarian, you get to experience how this was for her, entering places like Bosnia, for example, or Armenia, Nicaragua, Azerbaijan, and how she skillfully established a warm, friendly open approach to get people to open up to her, to talk to her, and share their most harrowing stories. She dutifully recorded them for Human Rights Watch, using their protocol for in-field reporting, and those stories went around the world, and woke up everyday people, so they could raise their voices to stop human rights abuses. It takes tremendous courage and selflessness to do the work Jane has done, to dedicate one’s life to it, without thought of thanks, or economic reward, but because it was the right thing to do, and she could give herself to it, and advance the cause of human rights in the world.
There could be no better awardee for the UNA Santa Barbara Peace Prize, and isn’t marvelous to learn about how many angels, past prize recipeints, walking amongst us, that are so worthy of celebrating!
Go to UNASB.org for more information and tickets.
