President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has emerged one of the selected best 50 persons in the world in 2017 by Bloomberg.
Aliko Dangote is the only African on the Bloomberg 50 list of this year’s most influential people.
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Pastor James Wuye and Imam Muhammad Ashafa have won the 2017 Intercultural Innovation Award held at the UN headquarters.
The two Nigerian clerics were among the 10 recipients of the award, out of which five awardees were from Africa, namely Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Tunisia and Uganda. The others were from Argentina, Ecuador, Israel, Northern Ireland and Pakistan.
The Intercultural Innovation Award is a partnership between the United Nations Alliance of Civilization (UNAOC) and BMW Group that selects and supports innovative intercultural grassroots projects. It is ‘a celebration of the most innovative grassroots projects that encourage intercultural dialogue around the world’.
The Pastor’s and Imam’s project that was nominated for the award is ‘Transforming pastoralist-farmer conflict in Nigeria’.
According to the Award:
“A combination of resource-based and ethno-religious conflict is causing many hundreds of fatalities each year in Nigeria and displacing tens of thousands of people from their homes and farms.
Imam Ashafa and Pastor Wuye’s project builds on their successful mediation of some of these conflicts, and adds the dimension of livelihood collaboration in order to restore the land – thereby creating a ‘win-win-win’ for the conflicting parties and the environment.
It puts into practical action some of the pioneering insights of the Caux Dialogue on Land and Security (CDLS) in Switzerland, which Pastor Wuye, Imam Ashafa and their team from the Interfaith Mediation Centre in Nigeria regularly attend.
In preparing for the event, UNAOC/BMW asked Pastor Wuye and Imam Ashafa, ‘How can we, the audience, join you in making a difference?
They replied: ‘Share with everyone that tackling farmer-pastoralist conflict will restore the social fabric of the Sahel region, while healing the land will restore the environmental fabric… Support inter-dependence, celebrate the gifts of diversity and collaborate to care for the planet wherever you are – and we will make a difference to our world’.”
The keynote statement at the award was delivered by the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed.
Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI), has won the 2017 Nelson Mandela-Graça Michel Innovation Award in mental health.
Victor Ugo, founder of Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) and himself a medical professional, said:
“This is an auspicious moment for us and we want to dedicate it to every Nigerian youth coping with mental illness.
We are motivated to keep up the discussion and hope our voice will continue to resonate both within and beyond our borders.”
Grant Clark, Senior Media Advisor to 2017 International Civil Society Week, said that MANI was selected from among 300 nominations across the globe as the winner in the Civil Society Organisation category.
In his words:
“The awards seek to recognize outstanding bravery and achievement towards social change.
From humble beginnings, MANI, which promotes mental health awareness in Nigeria, has grown to be the largest and most active mental health NGO.”
He said that former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, praised MANI’s achievement with the following declaration:
“We commend the work of Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative for opening the space to improve the lives of young Nigerians living with mental illness, who are too often stigmatized and the cause of great suffering for many people.”
The Nelson Mandela-Graça Michel Innovation Award, named after human rights icon Nelson Mandela and former First Lady of South Africa and Mozambique, Graça Machel, honour remarkable bravery and innovation in creating social change and empowering future generations.
Ms. Machel said at the award presentation that:
It is important that those of us with the freedom to speak out, use our voices to lift up these courageous individuals and organisations.”
The Senate of the Dominican Republic has conferred the chamber’s highest awards on the founder and spiritual head of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), Prophet Temitope Balogun Joshua popularly known as Prophet T. B. Joshua.
This was revealed at the end of the first session of the two-day crusade held at the Central Olympic Stadium, Felix Sanchez, located in the nation’s capital of Santo Domingo, on Friday, November 24, 2017.
While reading the letters of conferment of the Senate and Congress awards, the event had in attendance representatives of the governments of Russia, Spain, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, among others.
The Senate argued, among other things, that it reached the resolution of the conferment of the award on the cleric considering Prophet T. B. Joshua’s immense contributions to the growth and development of humanity, his wonderful and relentless social work, which he had tirelessly extended to impoverished regions of the world, his large donations to help widows, orphans, the destitute, the elderly and the physically challenged. Chief among the mention of the Senate was the humanitarian work spearheaded by the prophet after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, including supports to India, Ghana and the Philippines following various disasters.
The Senate further extolled the unrelenting commitment of the cleric in engendering global peace and therefore made him the spiritual guide of the nation.
While accepting the award in the company of his wife, Prophet Joshua thanked the government and people of the Dominican Republic for such recognition promising that he would continue to pray for the country while also making it his second home.
In the words of Prophet T. B. Joshua:
“I am very delighted. I am also very grateful to the government and people of the Dominican Republic. I dedicate this award to the people of this country. I will continue to pray for you and I will ensure that this country is my second home.”
The crusade venue witnessed a mammoth crowd of worshippers, government officials, politicians and the entire strata of the human society. Many had travelled far and wide to hear the cleric preach and pray for the sick and other miracle-seekers.
The crowd had continued to swell with over 60,000 participants in attendance. Despite the human traffic, no untoward incident occurred.
In his message, Prophet Joshua, taking his text from Romans 5:2 of the Holy Bible, called on his immediate and virtual listeners, to ensure that they sought the kingdom of God first while also seeking the happiness and joy of their neighbours.
According to Prophet T. B. Joshua:
“We live in a world where people measure their happiness with material possession. But this is not so. You must measure your happiness by ensuring the happiness of others. This is the example that Jesus Christ has set for us. You can bless others with your smile, your money, your material possession or even other things. Put a smile on people’s faces and you will be glad.”
Nigeria has emerged the most positive African country on the World’s Most Positive Countries 2017 index published by Daily Positive (D+).
Nigeria re-emerged as the regional winner of Africa after missing out last year. Nigerians have excelled with glittering awards, such as, the Royal Academy of Engineering Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, World Food Prize and BBC World News Komla Dumor Award. The Nigerian robotics team won a gold medal at the FIRST Global robotics competition in Washington DC. Nigeria did not ever give up on the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls and continued to make progress and rescued significant number of the girls in 2017.
In 2015, Nigeria emerged the most positive African country on the World’s Most Positive Countries 2015 index published by Daily Positive (D+).
Globally, Australia was crowned the World’s Most Positive Country for 2017, for the second time ever in half a decade, according to the annual global index published by Daily Positive (D+), a unique online media organization from Australia for positive news.
The annual list of top ten most positive countries is compiled based on a positivity index comprised of a global expert panel rating, a D+ journalists rating, a global web poll and the number of positive news entries in 2017 on the D+ website.
Apart from this overall list of 10 most positive countries, for the third time, D+ also published a list of regional positive countries from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America. The regional winners were selected based on the same criteria used to select the overall winners but from a specific region outside of the top ten in the list.
The top 10 World’s Most Positive Countries for 2017 along with respective ranking points are as follows:
|
Country Name |
Total Points |
|
Australia |
501 |
|
Canada |
489 |
|
Switzerland |
480 |
|
China |
472 |
|
France |
461 |
|
Germany |
454 |
|
Denmark |
442 |
|
England |
434 |
|
Netherlands |
428 |
|
United States of America |
418 |
D+ Most Positive Regional Countries 2017
Africa: Nigeria
Asia: Bangladesh
It is mainly because, along with many positive achievements, in 2017 Bangladesh dealt with the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis with open arms and saved the world from a huge catastrophe. Huge credit goes to the current Bangladeshi government and Bangladeshis from across the country who raced to save Rohingya refugees fleeing the brutal ethnic cleansing operation of Burmese military. Bangladesh became exemplary for the regional powers and many developed nations with its humane response to deal with well over half-a-million refugees that arrived in the country in few weeks. Apart from that, Bangladesh inaugurated its first solar-powered Food Warehouse with a capacity of 25,000 tonnes of grain. Bangladesh launched its first ever nano-satellite Brac Onnesha. Bangladeshi surgeons successfully separated two 9-month-old sisters born pygopagus in a complex operation.
Europe: Norway
Norway is the regional winner from Europe. Norway topped the World Democracy Index indicating that it has a near-perfect fully functional democracy. That helped Norway to achieve best press freedom in the world. As part of continuous economic development, Norwegian solar panel maker Saga Energy recently signed a deal worth 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion) with Iran’s state-owned company Amin Energy Developers to build solar power plants in Iran.
North America: Cuba
Cuba retained its regional title for the third consecutive year. After job well done by the Cuban medical professionals in West Africa to fight Ebola since 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized their efforts in 2017. Cuba continued its positive attempt to integrate and engage further with the international communities. As a result, first ever cooperation agreement between the European Union and Cuba was approved in order to expand bilateral trade, promote dialogue and provide joint action on the world scene.
South America: Colombia
Colombia became the regional winner from South America for the second consecutive year. Colombia continued to build on the peace process that started for last few years in order to neutralize the local armed groups. Also, Colombian singer Shakira received the 2017 Crystal Award for her efforts to help displaced and disadvantaged children in Colombia. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was named as one of the most influential people by Time Magazine for his determination to establish peace. Natalia Ponce de Leon of Colombia, a human right activist and acid attack victim, was honored with the United States Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award 2017.
Other nations outside of the list of most positive countries also made 2017 a memorable one. Iceland topped the list of the world’s most peaceful country. Tunisia, Jordan and Lebanon abolished a law that allowed rapists to avoid prosecution by marrying their victims. Saudi Arabia‘s King Salman issued a decree allowing women to drive for the first time in the Kingdom. India created history by successfully launching 104 satellites on a single mission, overtaking the previous record of 37 satellites launched by Russia in 2014. Portugal won the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time since it first entered the contest in 1964.
According to Dr. Arif Jubaer, Founder of D+:
“On the occasion of D+ world’s most positive countries 2017, it was great to see people from all around the world coming together and working for a positive world despite all the negativities surround them. For the positive newsmakers, 2017 was not about their individual dreams, rather it was about the dreams for a positive world.”
D+ will present the above information and facts in detail at a presentation ceremony on Saturday, 25 November 2017, 2.00PM in Melbourne, Australia.
For more information on the World’s Most Positive Countries 2017 visit http://www.dailypositive.org/Most_Positive_Countries
Contact Information:
Contact Person: Dr. Arif Jubaer, Founder, Daily Positive (D+)
Web Address: http://www.dailypositive.org/
Email: arif.jubaer@dailypositive.org
Mobile: +61-411215302
Veteran Nollywood actor, Kenneth Okonkwo has been awarded member, Order of Nigerian Youth mentors by the National Youth Council of Nigeria for his contributions to the concluded peace walk in Abuja.
Chikezie Emmanuel Uzuegbunam has been named one of 100 Brightest Young Minds in Africa 2017 by Brightest Young Minds (BYM).
Chikezie Emmanuel Uzuegbunam, a second-year doctoral student at the Centre for Film and Media Studies, University of Cape Town. After a rigorous selection process, Mr. Chikezie was selected based on his past academic and social innovation works and resume.
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