CNN correspondent Arwa Damon wins second annual Shifa Gardi International Award

Senior CNN correspondent Arwa Damon was awarded the second annual Shifa Gardi International Award in Erbil on Saturday, in honour of her reporting in Syria. 

The award was established last year in memory of Shifa Gardi, a Rudaw journalist killed in an ISIS bombing on February 25, 2017 while investigating a mass grave in Mosul. It seeks to honour Gardi’s memory by highlighting the talent of female journalists on the front line who “bravely report and bear witness to realities that are often underreported.”  

Damon’s recent work has included visiting families who had been displaced by the fighting in the embattled northwest Syrian province of Idlib. The province is currently the site of clashes between Syrian regime forces, backed by Russian support, and the jihadist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham armed group and their allied, Turkish-backed forces. Over 900,000 people have been displaced from the province and its surrounding areas since December, according to the United Nations. 

“Arwa Damon is brave: she often is the first one at the scene. But more importantly, in her reporting, she consistently reminds us all of the impact that conflict has on ordinary people’s lives,” UNAMI chief Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said before presenting Damon with her award. 

Last year’s award went to Lebanese journalist Jenan Moussa for her reporting on the ground across Iraq, Syria, the Middle East and North Africa.

Below is a full transcript of Arwa Damon's speech. 

"Thank you so much and I really appreciate it, and really appreciate being here.

Hello everybody, excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, Shifa's family, her friends, her colleagues and those who loved her. Thank you so much.

These kinds of events always contain conflicting emotions because on the one hand, while it is this phenomenal honor, one also can help we wish we lived in a world where these kinds of events just weren’t necessary. And that is the world that Shifa was fighting for, that is the world that all of us are all fighting for. Today also happens to be the eighth year anniversary of the death of another legend among our midst, and that is Marie Colvin who was killed in Baba Amr. With each one among us who dies, who is killed, who is detained, who is silenced, the rest of us get stronger.

We are driven by a passion to be there, a passion that I know Shifa shared. It is a fundamental belief that is perhaps naive, but it is this obligation that we have to bear witness. It is so powerful that is sometimes truly visceral, that is difficult for us to describe. It is difficult to those who care about us, to those who worry about us, to those who love us who do not necessarily understand why we would risk our lives. There are those, as we have heard throughout the night, that will not stop at anything to silence our voice. There are examples of them around the world, photographs of some of them, in this room. 

There are those who do not want us to hold those in power accountable, to unmask the lies and to try to bring those who are worlds away into the life of others who are often significantly less fortunate than the rest of us. We continue to do this because we cling to this hope and fundamental belief that we have to keep fighting, and there perhaps one day we will make a genuine difference. The world of journalism today is significantly different. It is in an entire landscape, not just within TV and print, but because there are so many outlets - whether it is Twitter journalists, or social media activists or just others on the ground - who are also out there trying to get bits and pieces of news out. And we are constantly under attack, whether it is Twitter bots who are trying to discredit our work, or from more powerful government leaders who just call us liars.

I just got out of Idlib, as you heard earlier. It was a gutting experience. There were children without shoes who had walked for seven hours in the bitter cold to escape frontlines. There were other children we met whose parents told us that they could not take them their toys as they were fleeing. And these children did not cry, and they did not complain. War has hardened them beyond their years.

Putting that report together was one of the toughest of my career. I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to do what I had witnessed there, justice. On this trip and rightfully so, many of those who we were talking to, were asking us, "Why should we tell you our story? It is been nine years and what difference has it made?"

The world knows what is happening in Syria. It is arguably the most documented war ever. And I could not tell them that if they shared their story with us, their life would change. I could not tell them that somehow the bombs would stop if they shared their profound pain and anguish that it would make a difference. All I could tell them, all I could try to do, was attempt to explain why it is still important. Even if we all end up doing is just recording history, because it is only through being on the ground and as you know, and as you heard tonight, Shifa believed in that as well, we all believe in that, Marie believed in that - being on the ground despite the risks is the only way we can truly and accurately record that history. And ours is a very much a team effort and the videos that you saw and in a lot of work that we do out there, we have a team with us. My cameraman’s pictures end up filling in and giving you the images where my words trying to report a story fail.

And I want to take a moment also now to recognize the journalists who do not have the luxury that I do, and that is the luxury of being able to walk away from a story, of being able to leave. For there are too many of those end up dying on the frontlines, for whom the violence and atrocities are not just the stories that they cover, but they’re actually entrenched in their daily lives. And they are the ones who are the true heroes, whether it’s our drivers, our fixers, our local producers and camera-people who are under constant and direct threat.

Journalists here, in Syria, in Yemen, and across the world who are trying to uncover truths that those in power and those who have big guns would want to see buried are constantly being threatened. And yet, they continue to persist despite the truth. Their risks don’t end, like mine do when a work day ends or when the assignment is over.

It is they for whom the story is also their life. And they are the ones that should be awarded and recognized, every single day, for their courage and bravery, for risking their lives and their families.

I did not have the pleasure of meeting Shifa in person. I got to know her through the stories of her colleagues and those who loved her, stories that I heard again tonight and in a greater depth, stories about her kindness, her compassion, her gentle and caring nature. And as you have heard tonight, this recognition comes with a generous cash prize. And as you know, I did found a charity, called INARA, that I launched five years ago. And that cash prize will be going of course in full to the charity.

And I like to think that Shifa, Shifa would have liked that. And I also think that it is testimony to her power to change people's lives, not only through the fact she has an award named after her, that she will continue to inspire journalists, but also, because even though she is no longer physically with us, she is also going to change Syrian children's lives, wounded Syrian children's lives, children who will be able to go back to school and live healthier lives despite the violence that has defined them.

I launched my charity INARA because I got to a point that I had to do more than just to report on the war. Because I saw a need that was out there, and because we live in a world where sadly the power of journalism has been diluted, because we are constantly under attack, whether it is on social media or physically being attacked and silenced.

Reporting does often feel like one is screaming into a dark abyss. But, despite those emotions and I know many of us do feel the same way, none of us are going to give up. In Shifa's honor, in Marie Colvin's honor, of all of those hundreds of journalists who have been killed, I promise, I vow; we will not give up, because even when it feels like the reporting is not making  a difference, we will not stop fighting for the truth, we will not stop fighting for accountability. And we are fighting to ensure that history is not written by the most powerful, but that it is recorded in all of its ugly truth.

It is only for the hope that future generations will learn from the cruelty of those passed, and will, unlike us, never allow it to happen again.

Thank you so much.”

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