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Colette Lespinasse wins the Richard C. Holbrooke Leadership Award for her tireless work with migrants ans displaced people in Haiti

“The Richard C. Holbrooke Leadership Award honors and recognizes those in local civil society who are usually the unsung heroes in neglected and forgotten displacement crises, the kind of crises that Refugees International has made its mission to alleviate”, describes the organization, from Washington DC.

Colette Lespinasse receives the award, in appreciation of all she has been doing as a member and coordinator of the Support Group of Returnees and Refugees (GARR), in Haiti but also helping to fight for the rights of the Haitian Diaspora, especially in Dominican Republic. It takes as well the advocacy process where the Support Group has been involved in the IDP’s phenomena after the earthquake.

Refugees International remarks the firm work that GARR started in 1992, 20 years ago, in the field  “ on behalf of Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic, as well as Dominicans of Haitian descent who are discriminated against due to their ethnicity”.

« Refugees International is proud to honor you as the 2012 recipient of the Richard C. Holbrooke Leadership Award and you deserve formal recognition for your important contributions to neglected and often-forgotten displacement crisis », states the chairman of the Refugees International Board, Michael Gabaudan in a letter addressed to Colette Lespinasse.

 Richard C. Holbrooke was one of the most important chairmen of Refugees International, besides his impressive work as a diplomatic in almost every external conflict in the past 60 years. That’s why, the Nongovernmental Organization choose his name to recognize these individuals that work on the field of base-community response to refugees.