BICOM

The 29-year-old chief operating officer of Israeli international aid organisation IsraAID, has been announced as the winner of the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award.

Navonel Glick led a delegation to England to help families recovering from the flooding in the Leeds area in early 2016. The team handed out blankets and helped repair homes.

Mr Glick told the Jewish Chronicle: “It was hard for them to process, because although other people had travelled from neighbouring towns to offer help, when the victims realised we had actually travelled from Israel they couldn’t believe it. Suddenly they started to grin from ear to ear and then the reaction was, ‘Wow! Really? From Israel. You truly came to help us from Israel?’

“We are proud to play our part and to help people to return to some sort of normality. It was heartbreaking when people told us they had no insurance, for them it was a total loss.”

The award, presented to young humanitarians around the world by the Ali Centre, is given to six people annually who each represent one of Muhammad Ali’s Six Core Principles: Confidence, Conviction, Dedication, Giving, Respect, and Spirituality.

IsraAID was founded in 2001 as the The Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid. An international aid organisation, IsraAID is particularly well-known for its work in disaster response, drawing on expertise in Israel and the Jewish world.

IsraAID sent doctors and rescue teams to Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami, to Myanmar after the 2008 cyclone and Haiti to help recovery from the huge 2010 earthquake. It helped the USA after Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina.

It also works in war zones, and provides longer-term aid like anti-HIV work in Somalia and helping the newly-formed Government of South Sudan establish a Ministry of Social Development. More recently, IsraAID has been working to help Syrian refugees fleeing to European countries.

This year will be the first time the awards ceremony will be held without Ali, who died in June.