We are pleased to announce that Kumi Naidoo will present the Ubuntu Awards 2009 to winners at the Ubuntu International Youth Voluntary Service Award Ceremony in Johannesburg.
Kumi has a long history of involvement in the non-governmental sector, having served previously as founding Executive Director of the South African NGO Coalition (SANGOCO), Executive Director of the National Literacy Cooperation of South Africa, and as a director of both the Independent Electoral Commission and the South African Committee for Higher Education Trust. He is currently Kumi Naidoo is honorary president of CIVICUS, which has played an active role in uniting civil society around the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
An activist of the ANC from a very young age, Kumi was expelled from school at age 15 for his anti-apartheid activities. During the State of Emergency imposed by the apartheid regime in 1986 he was arrested and charged for violating provisions of the State of Emergency. After persistent state harassment he fled South Africa in 1987 while on trial for three years. He returned to South Africa a month after Nelson Mandela’s release and worked on setting up the African National Congress as a legal political party.
In 2003, Kumi was appointed by the UN Secretary General to the Panel of Eminent Persons on
UN-Civil Society Relations, and has served as an advisory board member for the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF), UNIFEM, the UN Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor (UNCLEP), and the Clinton Global Initiative. He currently serves as an Advisory Board member of the UN Development Programme civil society programme and served on the Board of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) for five years.
Kumi is currently working on a publication which examines the role of citizen action in the context of today’s society and following completion of this book he will take up the role of Executive Director of Greenpeace International from November 2009.
