Global Citizen Awards scheduled for September 9 gala in Oklahoma City


World Experiences Foundation’s Annual Global Citizen Awards Gala will be held on Saturday, September 9 at 6.30 pm at the Embassy Suites in Downtown Oklahoma City.
In addition to the honors presented, the evening’s entertainment will showcase a variety of special cultural performances from around the world. 
The Foundation will honor Governor Bill Anoatubby of the Chickasaw Nation with its Lifetime Achievement Award in Global Citizenship, the Whitten-Newman Family Foundation with the Global Vision Award, and Mary Blankenship Pointer, Senior Vice President Republic Bank & Trust and volunteer CFO, Council of International Neonatal Nurses with its Global Humanitarian Award.
Eleven outstanding global leaders/organizations will be inducted in WEF’s 2017 Class of Global Citizens for their extraordinary contributions to global citizenship in the United States and abroad.
The new “citizen” class includes Brenda Jones Barwick, a businesswoman and founder of Jones PR in Oklahoma City, and Lester Claravall for public service as a specialist in workplace safety at the Oklahoma Department of Labor. 
Patrick B. McGuigan, founder of the online news service CapitolBeatOK and editor of The City Sentinel newspaper, praised the foundation for recognizing Mrs. Barwick’s work, particularly her involvement in bringing to America (and Oklahoma City) for treatment and medical care a girl who lost both legs in the Bosnian War.
McGuigan, former deputy commissioner of labor in Oklahoma, also thanked the foundation for the honor to be given to Claravall for his decades of work as a public servant. 
Institutions incorporated into the foundation’s 2017 class of Global Citizens include the Multicultural Education Institute in Education, and the Syrian Toy Project in Nonprofits.
Other Global Citizen class members are Professor Evelyn Aswad in Law & Politics, Joslyn Mery-Massad in Media, Sunita MacLennan-Sharma in Community Service, Casey Camp-Horinek in Environment, Dr. Bradley Farriss in Healthcare, Dr. Eduard Ricaurte in STEM and Mariana Llanos in Arts.
Ramu Damodaran, Chief, United Nations Academic Impact Initiative and Deputy Director for Partnerships and Public Engagement, UN Outreach will be the featured keynote speaker for the September 9 event, at the Embassy Suites in the heart of Oklahoma City, adajacent to the OU Health Sciences Center. 
World Experiences Foundation’s global education programs provide opportunities for children in Oklahoma and abroad to connect with people from different cultures and countries. The Foundation website describes this work as “a powerful way of promoting global citizenship, building love and tolerance in the hearts and minds of children to foster world peace and collaboration.”
Tickets to the Global Citizen Awards Gala are $85.  For more information about the event or sponsorships, contact Akash Patel at 405-474-3310 / akash@worldexperiencesfoundation.org