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President Clinton to Honor Six Recipients at the Sixth Annual Clinton Global Citizen Awards

Ugandan LGBT rights activists, business and philanthropy leaders, and 14-year old social entrepreneur to be recognized for outstanding contributions

Seal, Joshua Bennett, Angelique Kidjo, and K’NAAN to perform, with special appearances by Haiti Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, Lt. Governor of California Gavin Newsom, Matt Damon, Rosario Dawson, Donna Karan, Eva Longoria, Bebe Neuwirth, and June Sarpong

NEW YORK – Tonight, President Bill Clinton will honor recipients at the sixth annual Clinton Global Citizen Awards in New York City in a ceremony featuring performances by recording artists and appearances by heads of state and celebrity philanthropists. The Clinton Global Citizen Awards recognizes individuals from various sectors who demonstrate visionary leadership in addressing global challenges. Carlos Slim Helú, founder of Fundación Carlos Slim; Luis A. Moreno, president of Inter-American Development Bank; Denis O’Brien, chairman and founder of Digicel Group; Pepe Julian Onziema, programme director and advocacy officer of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG); The Right Reverend Christopher Senyonjo, executive director of St. Paul’s Reconciliation and Equality Centre; and Katie Stagliano, founder and chief executive gardener of Katie’s Krops, will accept awards this year.

“The work being done by this year’s honorees is nothing short of extraordinary,” said President Clinton. “Tonight I’m proud to honor two Ugandans who risk their lives to secure basic human dignities many of us take for granted, three leaders whose contributions have positively impacted communities across the Caribbean and Latin America, and a social entrepreneur on pace to take my job before she turns 16. These are some truly amazing folks. They embody the spirit of CGI and inspire us all to be more responsible citizens of the world.”

President Clinton will host the ceremony to be held from 8 p.m.-10 p.m. and air on Hulu.com in October. Actress Bebe Neuwirth will emcee the show that features performances from Grammy Award-winning singer Seal, slam poet Joshua Bennett, Grammy Award–winning Beninoise recording artist Angélique Kidjo, and Somali-Canadian rapper K’NAAN. Haiti Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, Lt. Governor of California Gavin Newsom, Matt Damon, Rosario Dawson, Donna Karan, Eva Longoria, and June Sarpong will also make appearances in honor of the recipients.

The honorees were nominated by a collection of CGI members and global leaders and selected for their visionary leadership, demonstrated impact, and sustainable and scalable work in solving global issues. Recipients were chosen from government, civil society, the private sector, and the philanthropic community.

The Clinton Global Citizen Awards will be held on the second night of the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, which convenes more than 50 current and former heads of state and hundreds of business and civil society leaders to come up with innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.

The 2012 Clinton Global Citizen Award recipients are:

Leadership in Civil Society

The Right Reverend Christopher Senyonjo (Joint Honoree), executive director, St. Paul’s Reconciliation and Equality Centre
Kampala, Uganda
The Right Reverend Christopher Senyonjo is perhaps best known for his courageous advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ persons in Uganda. Bishop Senyonjo received his Master of Divinity in 1966 and his Master of Sacred Theology in 1967 from Union Theological Seminary in New York. From 1974 until 1998, Bishop Senyonjo was the Diocesan Bishop of West Buganda. He completed a Doctor of Ministry at Hartford Theological Seminary, which was key to his understanding of marriage and human sexuality. Following his retirement, Bishop Senyonjo began counseling services for LGBTQ people. In 2010, he founded St. Paul’s Reconciliation and Equality Centre in Kampala with support from the St. Paul’s Foundation for International Reconciliation in the United States. He has been recognized by the California State Assembly for his leadership on LGBTQ issues and was named one of Huffington Post’s Ten Most Influential Religious Leaders for 2010. Additionally, he was recently named a Grand Marshall of the San Francisco Pride Parade for his advocacy.

Pepe Julian Onziema (Joint Honoree), programme director and advocacy officer, Sexual Minorities Uganda
Kampala, Uganda
Pepe Julian Onziema is a 31-year old Ugandan transgender person. A Pan-African Human Rights Defender currently working as the programme director and advocacy officer at Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), Onziema is the spokesperson for both SMUG and the Ugandan LGBT movement, plus the LGBTI focal person on the Steering Committee of the Pan African Human Rights Defenders Network. In these capacities he has mobilized, coordinated, led, organized, and moderated actions to promote and protect the liberties of LGBTI persons in Uganda, regionally at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and internationally at the United Nations Human Rights Council. He has been arrested, threatened, named, and shamed in local media for his work.

Katie Stagliano, founder and chief executive gardener, Katie’s Krops
Summerville, South Carolina, United States
Katie Stagliano is the 14-year-old founder and chief executive gardener of Katie’s Krops, a nonprofit organization that starts and maintains vegetable gardens and donates the harvest to help feed people in need, while also inspiring and helping others to do the same. Stagliano’s dream to end hunger one vegetable garden at a time began when she grew a 40-pound cabbage in third grade. She donated the cabbage to a soup kitchen, where it fed 275 people. Katie’s Krops currently maintains 51 kid-run vegetable gardens in 21 states, which are producing thousands of pounds of healthy food for families in need. Utilizing her harvest, Stagliano also runs a soup kitchen to provide healthy meals to those in need. She sits on the Youth Advisory Board for the Alliance for a Healthier Generation and is a Global Teen Leader for the We are Family Foundation.

Leadership in Philanthropy

Carlos Slim Helú, founder, Fundación Carlos Slim
Mexico
Carlos Slim Helú founded Grupo Carso in 1965. In 1982, in the middle of Mexico’s debt crisis, Slim Helú decided to invest heavily and actively. He made diverse investments and acquisitions in different sectors, including industry, construction, consumer products, hospitality, mining, and retail and financial services. In 1990, Grupo Carso acquired five percent of Telmex in partnership with SBC and France Telecom, and in 2001, Slim Helú spun off Telmex’s cell phone unit to create America Movil. He continues to be active in business, although his primary focus is on education, health, and employment in Mexico and Latin America. Slim Helú’s foundations have been instrumental in growing the human, cultural, and economic capital of Mexico, and he has personally supported more than 165,000 young people in attending university, paid for numerous surgeries, and provided equipment for rural schools. Last year, he opened the Soumaya Museum, which has been visited by more than one million people.

Leadership in the Corporate Sector

Denis O’Brien, chairman and founder, Digicel Group
Ireland
Denis O’Brien is chairman of the privately-owned Digicel Group, one of the fastest growing mobile operators in the world. O’Brien founded Digicel in 2001, when the company launched a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) cellular phone service in the Caribbean. Digicel has extended its operations to 31 markets, with over 12.8 million subscribers in the Caribbean, Central America, and Pacific regions. O’Brien is one of Ireland’s leading entrepreneurs, with extensive investments across several sectors, including international telecoms, radio, media, property, aircraft leasing, golf, and other leisure interests. In 2010, O’Brien was named goodwill ambassador for the city of Port-au-Prince in Haiti by the mayor in recognition of his efforts to rebuild Haiti and attract foreign direct investment in the aftermath of the earthquake that year. Digicel is the single largest private investor in Haiti.

Leadership in Public Service

Luis A. Moreno, president, Inter-American Development Bank
Colombia
Luis Alberto Moreno assumed the presidency of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) on October 1, 2005. As president of the Bank, Moreno also serves as chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of the Inter-American Investment Corporation and chairman of the Donors’ Committee of the Multilateral Investment Fund. Previous to joining the IDB, Moreno served as Colombia’s ambassador to the United States for seven years. Moreno was also executive producer of the “TV Hoy” news program, which received the King of Spain Prize for journalistic excellence. He received the Orden de Boyacá en el Grado de Gran Cruz — the highest distinction given by the Colombian state — from the President of Colombia on August 2, 2002. Moreno obtained bachelor’s degrees in business administration and economics from Florida Atlantic University in 1975, and a Master of Business Administration from Thunderbird School of Global Management in 1977.