Global Peace Awards Honors Leaders at the Global Peace Convention 2019

Eric Olsen

February 28, 2019

Six exemplary individuals were recognized at the Global Peace Convention 2019 Global Peace Awards ceremony on February 28 in Seoul, South Korea. The Global Peace Awards honor government, civil society and faith leaders whose exemplary efforts have significantly improved the lives of others. Global Peace Awards underscore the importance of moral and innovative leadership, an ethic of public service, and a willingness to transcend boundaries of religion, ethnicity, culture and nationality in advancing the ideal of One Family under God.

Challenging conditions that limit human potential and social development, the six award winners are demonstrating lives of integrity and a sustained commitment to realizing a world of peace.

THE INTERFAITH LEADERSHIP AWARD recognizes an individual who has provided outstanding leadership advancing interfaith collaboration, humanitarian service, and peace through the vision of One Family under God.

Reverend Kenneth Bae was born in South Korea and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1985. He attended the University of Oregon and Covenant Seminary in St. Louis before moving to China in 2006. In addition to missionary work, he worked in the travel and tourism industry, with a passion to introduce westerners to the untainted beauty of North Korea while contributing to North Korea’s economic development. He was detained in North Korea in 2012 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. He was released in 2014 after 735 days of detention. Rev. Bae is the author of the book Not Forgotten and currently the founder and the president of Nehemiah Global Initiative, a global mission organization to remember, stand with, and pray for the 25 million North Koreans, to help them physically and spiritually restore and rebuild new lives in South Korea.

THE LEADERSHIP IN STRENGTHENING FAMILIES AWARD is presented to an individual for sustained efforts to advance the welfare of the family as the primary social institution and for supporting responsible parenting, strong marriages, and a healthy and nurturing environment for children.

Hajiya (Dr.) Amina Namadi Sambo was raised in the ancient city of Kano in Nigeria, earning her Bachelor’s of Political Science from the prestigious Bayero University, Kano in Nigeria. She also pursued Arabic and Islamic Studies at Al- Manar International College, Kaduna, and Strategic Health Communication at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

A successful businesswoman and consummate philanthropist, Hajiya Amina is the Founder of the NGO “I Care Women and Youth Initiative.” She founded the Daru Na’eem Academy of Abuja, is Patron of Diabetics Association of Nigeria; Grand Patron of New Faces New Voices; and Member of International Advisory Council, Global Peace Women. Although her work is recognized internationally, her deepest honor is as wife to husband Namadi Sambo, and mother to her six children and four grandchildren.

THE OUTSTANDING SERVICE AWARD is conferred on an individual whose efforts have resulted in sustainable progress in areas of health care, poverty reduction, entrepreneurship, environmental sustainability, education and other areas of social impact.

Dr. Florida Labuguen has been an educator and development specialist in her native Philippines, working in rural and urban settings. Her work has included teaching in technological universities, directing university extension services, managing Credit Cooperatives, heading Continuing Education Services and opportunity services.

Through attending the 2009 Global Peace Convention, Dr. Labuguen took on the challenge of promoting the nation’s National Service Training Program, injecting the values and approaches of “mainstreaming peace” into the three tracks of the NSTP (military preparedness, civic welfare and literacy training). As founding president of the Philippine Society of NSTP Educators and Implementers, she has forged close cooperation between community partners, youth volunteers and some 500 educational institutions. She seeks to train a new generation of peace leaders within her nation, to ensure their success and the nation’s advancement.

THE PHILANTHROPY AND CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP AWARD is presented to an individual who has committed significant efforts and resources to advance initiatives to improve and enhance the quality of human life and has played a pivotal role in advancing corporate social responsibility.

Mr. Hideo Kawabata is CEO of Fuji Suiso Kansha, a leading sales company of hydrogen supplements that enhance health and reduce illness, used extensively by professional athletes, actors and public figures. Overcoming early difficulties, he attained substantial success and has become an inspiring leader, mentoring young entrepreneurs throughout Japan. He is the author of How to Make a Billionaire’s Brain: The Dream Will Come True; the Solutions are Unlimited.

Sponsoring programs of the Global Peace Foundation has allowed Mr. Kawabata to expand his philanthropic work to other nations—including the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Korea—as well as his native Japan. His passion is to build peace by empowering children around the world.

THE INNOVATIVE SCHOLARSHIP FOR PEACE AWARD recognizes an individual whose outstanding scholarly work has positively contributed to security, peace, and social reconciliation and led to policy initiatives that have advanced peace and human development.

Ambassador Jargalsaikhan Enkhsaikhan, an international lawyer and diplomat, served as the foreign policy advisor to the first democratically elected President of Mongolia in the 1990s. As Executive Secretary of the nation’s National Security Council, he advised Mongolia’s Parliament on issues of national security and foreign policy. Later, appointed to serve as Mongolia’s Ambassador-at-Large, he advanced the nation’s nuclear disarmament stance internationally. He has served as architect, prime mover and the main spokesperson of Mongolia’s nuclear-weapon-free status initiative and subsequent policy.

At present he serves as Chairman of Blue Banner, a Mongolian NGO that promotes the goals of nuclear non-proliferation and strengthens the country’s nuclear-weapon-free status. In 2015, together with fellow. GPPAC Northeast Asia agencies, Blue Banner launched the “Ulaanbaatar Process,” in which NGOs conduct Track 2 discussion of issues relating to stability in Northeast Asia, including the Korean peninsula.

THE PROMOTING A CULTURE OF PEACE AWARD recognizes an individual whose efforts have contributed to greater cultural understanding of our shared human ideals while building cross-cultural bridges in the cause of peace and people-to-people diplomacy.

Mr. Hyung-Suk Kim was born into a musical family and studied music from early childhood. A prolific composer, he has written more than 1,000 songs, and has worked with many popular artists of the K-pop wave. He is also an actor and television personality, featured on “Mask King” (Origin of Fox’s “Masked Singer” show), and is chair of Kiwi Media Group, and works with the PopnPop Art Factory, K-note Music Academy, Korea Art Conservatory, and other arts organizations.

He has written songs for the Olympics, for the Korean presidency, and in 2015, the song “One Dream, One Korea,” which coalesced wide support for the long-held dream of a unified Korean nation, especially among the youth. In April of 2018, that song was heard around the world in the final meeting of South Korean President Moon Jae In and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, ending the prolonged hostility between the divided entities. He is married to Seo Jin-Ho.