Picture Credit: Shalom Center
Frenchpark native Fr. Padraig Devine has been nominated for the prestigious Tipperary Peace Prize for his work in restoring peace to tribal lands in eastern Africa.
As Missionary Priest Fr. Devine built up 25 years of experience helping to mitigate conflict and poverty in Africa. In 2009 he founded the Shalom Center for Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation. Fr. Devine serves as the organisation’s executive director, leading an international team of conflict resolution experts from various religious backgrounds and disciplines who are based in Kenya and neighbouring countries. You can find out more about the work of Fr Devine and Shalom here.
The Tipperary Peace Prize is awarded annually by the Tipperary Peace Convention. The organisation was established in 1983 with the original aims of promoting the concept of peace through music and discussion, to provide an Open Forum for the discussion of current peace-related issues with contributions from leading spokespeople of various and diverse viewpoints and to select and reward, annually, a person who has made a particularly noteworthy contribution to the peace-making process.
This year’s other nominees are former Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness; Amnesty Ireland; Human Rights Lawyer Amal Clooney; the Syrian White Helmets rescue workers and Lady Rabab al Sadr – an activist from the Lebanon.
Previous recipients of the Award include the then (2016) US Secretary of State John Kerry and former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon. The 2013 winner, Malala Yousafzai – a 16-year-old Pakistani activist, went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.