IAVE was honored to present a whole raft of awards at our 27th IAVE World Volunteer Conference in Busan, South Korea, last month. Congratulations to all of our esteemed award winners, and thank you for your courageous and determined service.
IAVE Lifetime Awards
The IAVE Lifetime Awards were presented by Matt Clausen, Vice Chair of the IAVE Board of Directors. Two dedicated volunteer leaders received this honor:
- Yoonae Park has over 40 years of experience in volunteerism, social welfare, and civil society. She is the chairperson of Korea Volunteer Center and previously served as the CEO of Volunteering Connected, Seoul Volunteer Center, and Volunteering Culture Korea.
- Joyce Yoon has been an active member of IAVE for almost 20 years. She has worked with Korea’s Overseas Development Projects in Asia Pacific region including Vietnam, Mongolia, Thailand and Myanmar, and is founder of Global Volunteering Cooperation (GVC).
Mary Ripley Award
The Mary Ripley Award, in honor of IAVE’s Founding President, was presented by Ms. Ripley’s granddaughter, Jessica Kooiman. This year the award honored Lejla Šehić Relić, founder and managing director of Volunteer Centre Osijek, and President of the Centre for European Volunteering. She is the former president of the Croatian National Council for the development of volunteerism and co-author of several publications on volunteering, civil society and conflict management.
Oknah Lah Award
The first-ever Oknah Lah Award was presented by Jake Lah, CEO of DAC and founder of Volunteeum, in honor of his mother who was a pioneer in the Korean volunteer movement. The award was given to Blessing Ewa, Executive Director and Founder of Young Advocates for a Sustainable and Inclusive Future (YASIF) in Nigeria, and leader of Project Waste-free Communities, an initiative to build climate-conscious mindsets in grassroot communities She is also the West Africa Coordinator for Net Zero As Soon as Possible (NZASAP).
Kenn Allen Awards
And finally, Dr. Kang Hyun Lee, Former World President of IAVE, presented two Kenn Allen Awards to the 2023 and 2024 winners.
— Alfredo Abreu is founder of Serve the City Portugal and former chair of the Board for Serve the City International. “Alfredo is the person with the greatest volunteer spirit I know, always assuming an attitude of humility and service,” said Sonia Fernandes, who nominated him for the award.
— Dr. Oknah Kim Lah, namesake of IAVE’s newest award, also became a posthumous recipient of an IAVE award. Dr. Lah established Korea’s first volunteer organization, the Korea Association for Volunteer Effort, in 1989, later expanded to Kakdang Social Welfare Foundation. She was a courageous and visionary civil servant. Among other accomplishments, she invested in hospice education and established “A Group that Thinks about Life and Death,” making discussion of death a public topic for the first time in Korean society.
