Lord Ara Darzi appointed to Aurora Prize Selection Committee

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative on Tuesday, September 5 confirmed the appointment of Armenian-British doctor and Labour politician Lord Ara Darzi to the Aurora Prize Selection Committee.

The Selection Committee is comprised of a select group of humanitarians, human right activists and former heads of state, and is chaired by Academy-award winning actor and director, and a humanitarian in his own right, George Clooney.

Professor Darzi is Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. He also holds the Paul Hamlyn Chair of Surgery at Imperial College London, and the Institute of Cancer Research and is Executive Chair of the World Innovation Summit for Health in Qatar. He is a Consultant Surgeon at Imperial College Hospital NHS Trust and the Royal Marsden NHS Trust. In 2002, he was knighted for his services in medicine and surgery, and was introduced to the United Kingdom’s House of Lords as Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham in 2007. He has been a member of the Privy Council since June 2009 and was awarded the Order of Merit in January 2016.

Lord Darzi’s family has had experience with life-saving heroes. His family was from the northeastern city of Erzurum, Turkey. His father’s grandfather and his sons were executed by Ottoman forces during the Genocide. Lord Darzi’s paternal grandmother and great grandmother were the family’s only survivors. “They walked barefoot for weeks from Erzurum to northern Iraq and ended up in Mosul in Iraq, thanks to the help of a friend of my father’s grandfather,” explained Lord Darzi to Aurora’s 100 LIVES project. “So, I understand personally the significance of ‘gratitude in action’. This is a very meaningful way for me to publicly advocate for the need to recognize humanitarian kindness and generosity everywhere.”