iCONGO and our founding members have been chosen for various awards, fellowships and recognitions. However we at iCONGO, who have the inherent belief of being just another volunteer, humbly believe that our best award is to see the change and witness social justice through citizen action when we manage to ignite the spirit of activism to create action against apathy. We have humbly declined various fellowships and awards after receiving nominations and being finalists for various fellowships by Eisenhower Foundation, Yale and the Young Global leader Award by World Economic Forum. There are 3 reasons to decline these:
1. We prefer not to lobby/campaign for awards.
2. We do not have the wherewithal or the luxury of time or resources to indulge in these campaigns as the work on the ground and at the grassroots needs more attention.
3. We cannot afford the luxury of going and living overseas for a long period of time, for the duration of the fellowships, or lobbying for awards as we have a very small dedicated management team and are mostly run by volunteers. So every day is important to be and lead the change. Receiving nominations for the awards is a good feeling and to know that our work is recognised and wherever possible we do pass on the awards to volunteers and people who work with us to help encourage citizen action and social justice like we did with the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini award and the Kauffman award given out through the Young Entrepreneurs Organisation (YEO) network. We believe in what Nelson Mandela said as given below and thus try and let our work and freedom struggle for all our causes are our award.
I have never cared very much for personal prizes. A man does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards, but when I was notified that I had won the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Mr de Klerk, I was deeply moved. The Nobel Peace Prize had a special meaning to me because of its involvement with South African history.... The award was a tribute to all South Africans and especially to those who fought in the struggle; I would accept it on their behalf.
Nelson Mandela
iCONGO was nominated by people whom we have never met (except Mr. Arun Maira) but they have been following our work.
Dear Jeroninio Almeida:
You have been nominated to the 2009 Class of the Yale World Fellows Program by Paul Folmsbee. Each year the World Fellows Program brings to Yale 16 to 18 highly accomplished emerging leaders from around the world for an intensive 17 week program exploring critical global issues through individualized academic enrichment, a World Fellows Seminar, and leadership training. Detailed information about the Program is available at our web
site: www.yale.edu/worldfellows
We hope that you will decide to apply for a place in the 2009 Program.
Within the next business day you will receive password information and instructions that will allow you to access and complete the online application.
The application deadline for the 2009 Program is January 9, 2009, and final decisions will be made in April 2009. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns and we will be happy to answer them
Kind regards,
Michael Cappello, Director
Program information: http://www.yale.edu/worldfellows
From: Dr. Jayshree Pandya
To: 'Jeroninio Almeida'
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 9:39 PM
Subject: RE: The new conclave editorial and innovative forum concept note
The nomination requires your birth date. Please send me when you can
Dear Jerry,
Thanks for your emails.
Before we go into business potential discussions I would like to inform you that I am nominating you for “Young Global Leader” award. What you have achieved at a young age is highly admirable. I will use information from the profile you have sent me to nominate you.
I am not going to be in my office most of the day-I will catch up later with you
Cheers,
Jayshree
Dear Jerry,
We spoke. Please review the information and fill in the application.
Best regards,
Arun Maira
From: Dr. Santrupt Misra
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 2:33 PM
To: Maira Arun
Cc: Shabnum Ginwala
Subject: Eisenhower Fellowship - 2008 Multi Nation Progam
Importance: High
Dear Mr. Maira,
Thank you once again, for your accepting Mr.Birla's invitation to be on the panels for the 2008 Multi Nation Program.
May I request you to please nominate names of deserving candidates, so that we can gather their detailed CV and complete other formalities before the interview? As you know the Preliminary Interview dates are 28th May in Mumbai and 2nd June in Delhi, and if we do not have large number of nominations, we may straight go for the Final interview on 11th June in Mumbai, instead of having the two Preliminaries. I am once again attaching in Word format, the application form for the candidates, the information for the candidates and the criteria for Eisenhower Fellows, for easy retrieval.
Looking forward to receiving your nominations,
With regards
Cheers,
Dr. Santrupt B Misra, Director, H.R. & I.T., Aditya Birla Management Corporation Ltd.
