Ambassador Sam Brownback will Receive 21Wilberforce 2020 Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Award

Ambassador Sam Brownback will Receive 21Wilberforce 2020 Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Award

The 3rd annual Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Award celebrates an outstanding leader who is working to advance freedom of religion or belief by standing up to oppression in the pursuit of freedom of religion, belief, or conscience. Ambassador Sam Brownback has an extensive track record of working in a bipartisan manner to promote religious freedom and other human rights for people around the globe.

During his sixteen years as a Congressman and U.S. Senator, Brownback was a leading advocate for international religious freedom, advocating for landmark policy reforms as well as prisoners of conscience wrongly incarcerated for their faith. He was a key sponsor of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA) that established a legal mandate for the promotion of religious freedom as an element of U.S. foreign policy. The IRFA also created Brownback’s current position in the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom and established the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Past recipients of the award include Archbishop Ben and Dr. Gloria Kwashi of Jos, Nigeria, and the city of Midland, Texas. The 2020 Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Award virtual ceremony will be held late September.

Upcoming Global Impact Conference Focus: Transformational Leaders in a Culture of Resistance

During the past several years 21Wilberforce team members have traveled to numerous countries of concern, interviewed hundreds of survivors of persecution, visited refugee camps and Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps across Africa and the Middle East, met with human rights leaders from every continent, and learned that genocide, executions, forced organ transplants, false imprisonment, kidnappings and widespread discrimination continues in our world at an alarming pace. The world cries out for courageous transformational leaders who will stand against evil and promote justice for all.

21Wilberforce, in partnership with Truett Seminary, will host a two-day Global Impact Leadership conference in February 2021 for faith leaders, leaders of nonprofits, and students. Global Impact training uses biblical, historical, contemporary, and personal examples of leaders who have brought about positive change within cultures of oppression that transcend their own time and place. Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information about the conference.

21Wilberforce Led Advocacy Initiatives Inspire Action and Changed Lives

During the 2019 Ministerial to Advance International Religious Freedom 21Wilberforcee coordinated the Events Program for international religious freedom groups and leaders invited by the State Department to engage with dozens of official events and 80-plus side events. Because of that success, we have been asked to do so again at this year’s annual religious freedom conference hosted by Poland.

21Wilberforce joined trusted partners in launching the first regional International Religious Freedom Roundtable and provided consulting, encouragement, and feedback so victims become champions working with other champions. 21Wilberforce also created the list of criteria used to establish Roundtables and referenced by the U.S. Government in its civil society engagement.

Advocacy Campaigns that we participated in with other faith groups and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) let policy makers in Washington and around the world hear from citizen-champions of international religious freedom.

• Worked to ensure that a full suite of diverse internet freedom tools is available to help millions of people behind the wall of censorship.
• Took the lead to campaign to free an imprisoned Christian pastor in Nepal, helping secure legal defenders, and advocating with the U.S. Government and at the United Nations to influence political change in Nepal.
• Confronted China’s Religious Oppression of Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps.
• Stood with Coptic Christian Ramy Kamel imprisoned by the Egyptian government.
• Urged actions to help address the widespread and escalating religious and ethnic violence in Nigeria.

International Religious Freedom Headlines

Six Years Ago They Came to Destroy But Faced No Legal Consequences

Pakistani Man Accused Of Blasphemy Shot Dead In Court

U.S. ambassador for religious liberty warns Vatican: China can’t be trusted

What We Are Reading

Sinjar: 14 Days that Saved the Yazidis from Islamic State
by Susan Shand, Globe Pequot/Lyons Press

Susan Shand’s book is a moving account of the Islamic State’s (ISIS) genocide against the Yazidi community in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq in August 2014, which claimed the lives of over 2,000 Yazidis, saw over 10,000 more abducted and tens-of-thousands more displaced.