10 of the most jaw-droppingly odd humanitarian awards
Anderson Cooper
Six months after the January 2010 earthquake shattered Haiti, the nation’s president was not to be found sweltering beneath the fraying tarpaulins that still sheltered millions. Instead, he was on a hastily erected podium in front of the collapsed presidential palace, conferring a knighthood on CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.
The network’s star reporter received his white enamel Maltese cross for his reporting on the disaster, at that point most memorable for the moment he scooped up an injured Haitian kid, realised he had absolutely no idea what to do next and handed him over to some other random people. It was one of a series of reports delivered in strikingly clean T-shirts.
Cooper later claimed he was accepting the award on behalf of all reporters who covered the crisis.
Sean Penn
Sean Penn pitched up in the earliest days of the Haiti response and made friends with the US military, mostly because no one else took him seriously. Thus started a love-in that has seen him awarded The Commander’s Award for Service (US Army 82nd Airborne Division); 82nd Airborne Award for Meritorious Service; the Operation Unified Response JTF Haiti Certificate from Lieutenant General US Army Commander P.K. Keen (still paying attention there at the back?), the 1st Recon 73rd Division Coin of Excellence; 2nd Brigade Combat Team Coin of Excellence; Commendation of Excellence United States Southern Command and the Award of Excellence by the Deputy Commander US Southern Command. This was all for setting up a halfway decent NGO and living in a tent in Haiti.
Ban Ki-moon meets with Sean Penn in Haiti. Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features
Bill Cosby
It’s a little strange to get an award for being nice and kind, which is what we’re all supposed to do with one another
Ellen DeGeneres
In 2002, the American Television Academy established the Bob Hope humanitarian award, retrospectively recasting the king of light entertainment as an advocate of in-depth socio-political commentary. If their first recipient (Oprah Winfrey) is not known for her work in humanitarian emergencies, their second (Bill Cosby, in 2003) is now filed firmly under “moving swiftly on”. One of the problems with awards is – unlike honorary degrees and the like – they are quite hard to take away. Perhaps that’s why the ATA moved to safer ground in 2010 with George Clooney, a man who has at least actually been in a war zone for over 24 hours, and haven’t nominated anyone since.
Ellen DeGeneres
American celebrity award show People’s Choice have an all-American answer to the liability issue when issuing humanitarian awards: competitive humanitarianism. Sadly, rather than run actual competitions (fastest proposal writer, beneficiary wrestling etc) this means the Favourite Humanitarian award gets voted for by the American public. It therefore goes to someone for basically being likeable/hot/in something everyone quite liked that year (see 2015’s winner Ben Affleck). To her credit, the 2016 winner Ellen DeGeneres actually pointed this out in her acceptance speech. “It’s a little strange to get an award for being nice and generous and kind, which is what we’re all supposed to do with one another,” she said.
Ellen DeGeneres, the people’s “favourite humanitarian”. Photograph: Danny Moloshok/Reuters
George Bush
Times are hard for extravagantly named and expensive academic institutions, so they can hardly be blamed for following the age-old strategy of inventing vague awards and giving them to very rich famous people at a swankily lucrative fundraising dinner. But the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at Denver University’s decision to pick George W Bush for an Improving the Human Condition award succeeded only in uniting current students, alumni and staff in protest.
After 2,000 signed a petition, the dean of Korbel (a former Bush staffer) sent out a squirmingly honest email indirectly confirming that the award was a fundraising wheeze: “To have the former president attend is a tremendous opportunity to use the occasion of this dinner to raise much needed funds for our school,” he pleaded. Rather than cancel, they simply changed the name of gong in question, settling on the “Global Service award”.
David Beckham receives his Humanitarian Leadership Award at the Unicef ball. Photograph: Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images for U.S. Fund for UNICEF
David Beckham
Just in case you thought it was just dollar hungry American academics who invented spurious awards for fundraising purposes, a few days ago Unicef Goodwill Ambassador David Beckham received a Humanitarian Leadership Award from Unicef for his work with, er Unicef. At a lovely big ticket glitzy Unicef party in New York, naturally.
Tony Blair
Save the Children’s decision to award Tony Blair a Global Legacy award at yet another shiny ceremony in New York in 2014 (also attended by Lassie the dog) prompted a global protest – led by their own staff. Insistence from senior management that the award was in recognition solely of his work in Africa did nothing to shift the view that Blair’s role in the 2003 Iraq war disqualified him from humanitarian awards.
A protest petition attracted over 120,000 signatures and over 200 staff members circulated a letter declaring the award a betrayal of the organisation’s values. Save the Children publicly apologised and said that there should have been a better “risk assessment” of the decision. Some Save the Children staffers said privately that they’d rather the award had gone to Lassie.
Zvonimir Cicak
For more than 20 years the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights has worked fearlessly to champion the cases of the powerless downtrodden by the powerful. Among the founding members was the indomitable Zvonimir Cicak, tireless advocate for peace and all-round leader of the Croatian liberal left. In 2015, his considerable lifelong achievements were recognised when he accepted an award for his work from the Croatian president.
In the kind of moment that will have all those who suffer from anxiety dreams reaching for the beta blockers, the previously obscure human rights defender’s trousers completely fell down as he reached out to collect the award. The fact it was a large poster-size certificate saved his modesty but not his reputation: after a decades of patient campaigning the first four pages of his Google results are now exclusively of the “Man Picks Up Award, Loses Trousers” variety. Note to all future award attendees: the lifetime of achievement is all very well, but for God’s sake don’t forget the belt.
Brits
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When the tide began to turn in Sierra Leone early 2015, British prime minister David Cameron wanted high profile ways to take the credit, and some sharp-eyed Westminster spin doctor saw the glint of PR gold – literally. Cameron announced the invention of the Ebola Medal, tastefully embossed with the outline of the virus, to be awarded in recognition of the bravery of responders (pdf) – responders, that is, who were Brits. The decision left NGOs in the awkward position of formally recognising exclusively the British members of their team, with the criteria even excluding those of dual UK Sierra Leonean nationality resident in country. And no actual Sierra Leoneans.
… You?
Feeling a little left out in all this award schmaltz? Furious that celebs who wouldn’t know what an IDP was if they were asked to adopt one are getting all these shiny mantelpiece enhancers while you, the real humanitarian, are sweating it out in your Juba shipping container? Well, calm down – because there’s an award just for you. The World Humanitarian awards are looking for nominees for their 2016 Man and Woman of the year. Just email your CV to worldhumanitarianawards@gmail.com, impress their board of “seasons artists, entrepreneurs, film makers and notable politicians” and you could join the likes of Dennis Rodman and Pearl Jam in perfecting the art of glistening tears of thanks and humility on the podium next August.
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