Anish Kapoor pledges USD 1 mln prize money to refugee causes

India-born British sculptor Anish Kapoor has pledged his USD 1-million Genesis Prize money, dubbed the 'Jewish Nobel', to refugee causes.

The 63-year-old artist, born to an Indian father and a Jewish mother, was awarded the 2017 prize for outstanding professional achievement and commitment to the Jewish people and Jewish values.

Kapoor yesterday said the prize money would go to five prominent NGOs engaged in alleviating the global refugee crisis International Rescue Committee (IRC) led by its president and former British foreign secretary David Miliband, as well as the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees (MFA), HIAS (founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), Help Refugees, and Hillel International.
 

"Like many Jews, I do not have to go far back in my family history to find people who were refugees. Directing Genesis Prize funds to this cause is a way of helping people who, like my forebears not too long before them, are fleeing persecution," he said.

Kapoor and the Genesis Prize Foundation have teamed up with the IRC to improve community health services for refugees in northern Uganda and to provide life-saving access to safe water for the Rohingya ethnic minority group in the Rakhine state of Myanmar.

Genesis funds will also support the expansion into Italy of Refugee.

Info, a digital platform, which harnesses social media and other digital tools to ensure that refugees have access to the critical information they need to make informed decisions about their lives.

"Grants like the one from The Genesis Prize Foundation are vital to supporting our work as we grapple with the largest displacement crisis since the Second World War, affecting a staggering 65 million people," IRC CEO Miliband, himself a son of Jewish refugees, said.

Kapoor is an award-winning artist and vocal human rights campaigner, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2013 for services to visual arts and has also been awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Indian government.