Rede zur Preisverleihung
Prof. Dr. Theda Borde, Rektorin der Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin
Dear Rugiatu Turay,
we are very proud to hand the Alice Salomon Award 2010 to Rugiatu Turay, the founder and coordinator of the Amazonian Initiative Movement. She receives this award for her outstanding commitment and courage fighting for women's rights to end female genital mutilation (FGM) in Sierra Leone. With AIM Rugiatu Turay has set up an organisation fighting traditional violence against girls and women using remarkable strategies and methods to change social structures and to promote girls' and women's rights. Rugiau Turay and AIM think global and act local. Both perspectives are necessary to be effective locally and to gain international solidarity and to promote human rights and women's rights.
The first dedication of the award took place on the occasion of the opening of the Alice-Salomon-Archive in 2001. With this award the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences honors women who have made an outstanding contribution to the emancipation of women as well as to the development of Social Work. With the Alice Salomon Award we keep alive and support the work of Alice Salomon under the conditions of our time.
I want to thank Adriane Feustel, who has done a wonderful job in this respect with her work dedicated to the Alice Salomon Archive. Her research, publications and international networks contributed to the knowledge we now have about Alice Salomon and the development of Social Work as a profession.
The Alice Salomon Award, represented by a bronze medal showing the portrait of Alice Salomon has already been dedicated three times by the Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin.
This was Alice Shalvi in 2001 who is considered Israel's most outspoken and active conservative Jewish feminist. She is known for persistently challenging Israel's male dominated establishment in her quest for equal opportunity, equal reward and status for women.
In 2004 Fadéla Amara, the president of the association "Ni Putes, Ni Soumises" received the Alice Salomon Award. This association empowers women and girls of various socio cultural background in the outskirts of French cities to publicly stand up against exclusion and for equity, against discrimination and for individual rights.
And in 2006 - when Alice Salomon Hochschule celebrated its 100 years anniversary, Barbara Lochbihler was given the Award for her outstanding activities in women's and human rights in her position as the general secretary of the German Section of Amnesty International and the International Women's League for Peace and Freedom.
And today, we are very proud to give this award to you, Ruigiatu Turay. More will be said about your work and the reasons why we selected you to be awarded. Here I want to conclude that we can learn from these women, the awardees of the Alice Salomon Award. They show us that Social work is not just helping people but that it also means changing social structures.
