Award winners from Poland, Israel and Palestine and Germany
The Threshold assigned the following Award in autumn 2003 for the first time: "Crossing Thresholds" - Bremen Peace Award for exemplary commitment for justice, peace and integrity of creation.
Category "The Unknown Peace Worker": Sister Weronika Sakowska
Sister Weronika Sakowska is a member of the Catholic Order of Pallotines and is from Poland. Sister Weronika has worked for almost 10 years in a camp for refugees of the genocide in Rwanda (now near Goma, DR Congo). She worked there with other sisters to establish a nutrition and health centre to, above all, provide orphans in this area the minimum in healthcare and nutrition. In addition, Sister Weronika has also gradually set up schools in this area, an area in which the educational system had become practically non-existent since the refugees started flooding in. She is now setting up a similar centre in the neighbouring Congolese border area, where, as is generally known, orphans are abused and forced to become child soldiers. In a situation in which hopelessness, sickness and death had and have the upper hand, Sister Weronica has, through her personal commitment, given people and especially children new hope, has saved many from a fate of starvation and death from disease and given them a new perspective beyond that of war and violence by setting up schools.
Category "Exemplary Organisation": Parents Circle - Families Forum
Parents Circle is a union of Palestinian and Israeli parents who have lost their children to the violent conflicts in the Middle East. The members are united in grief and use various activities to make the public in the Middle East sympathetic towards a just peace agreement between Israel und Palestine. Parents Circle advocates conflicting parties coming to understandings and political compromises that are more tolerable than further acts of violence. They consider the shock they all experienced at the fate of their deceased children as particular legitimation to convince the public of the absurdity of further bloodshed and to make clear that there are, after all, people in the enemy camps who both are in mourning and have fears but are also ready for reconciliation.
Category "Public Engagement": Hans Graf von Sponeck
Hans Graf von Sponeck, born in 1939 in Bremen, served for 30 years as a diplomat in the UN. Most recently he held the rank of UN Assistant Secretary General responsible for the "Oil for Food" programme. In 2000 he, together with two other top diplomats, stepped down from this post and resigned from the UN out of protest against the sanctions policy of the Security Council and in particular the USA, responsible for the death of several hundred thousand Iraqi children. Since then he has done his utmost, with great public response, to support a policy of community of nations vis-à-vis the Iraqi people, a policy which serves the Iraqi population and is in keeping with the principles of human rights. In the end he was one of the deciding and competent opponents of the war in Iraq in the name of international law and human rights, most recently in a book he and Andreas Zumach published: "Irak , Chronik eines gewollten Krieges – Wie die Weltöffentlichkeit manipuliert und das Völkerrecht gebro-chen wird" [Iraq, Chronicles of a Wanted War – How the World at Large is Manipulated and International Law is Broken]. In a comprehensive 80-page interview, Hans von Sponeck’s efforts, in spite of the opposition, to put a stop to the genocide committed against Iraqi children are brought to light. (Kiepenheuer 2003). H. von Sponeck was selected as one of the first winners of the Threshold award because he fully committed himself to the causes of humanity, law, justice and peace, and in so doing accepted the personal consequences which ended his career as a top diplomat.