The director of a project that helps female survivors of the Darfur genocide will receive a $100,000 humanitarian prize.
Rachel Andres, 45, was recognized with the Charles Bronfman Award for her work with Jewish World Watch’s Solar Cooker Project.
The annual award created by Bronfman’s two children, Ellen and Stephen, and their spouses, is given to a humanitarian worker younger than 50 whose efforts exemplify Jewish values. Andres, the first woman and the fourth person to be named, will receive the award May 5.
The Solar Cooker Project has donated some 5,000 pieces of solar-powered cooking equipment to women who escaped Darfur and fled to refugee camps, where women commonly are raped as they venture away to collect firewood.
Since project volunteers started distributing the cooking equipment last year in the Iridimi and Touloum refugee camps on Chad’s border with Sudan, the risk to women has been reduced significantly, according to a news release announcing Andres as the award winner.
