Sometimes strange coincidences make great things happen – unexpectedly.
Here is part of the background story behind the establishment of The Jim Grant Award for Child Survival by a little-known, funnily named, but very credible and worthy private philanthropic organization, the Eleanor Crook Foundation (ECF), which is deeply committed to combating maternal and child malnutrition in developing countries.
A few months ago, when the former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney died, I had written a brief obituary recalling his leadership of the 1990 World Summit for Children; how he had helped “deliver” US President George Bush (Sr) to attend that Summit; how he had been very helpful to Jim Grant and UNICEF; and had established the Micronutrient Initiative (currently known as Nutrition International) as a concrete follow-up of Canada’s commitment to the ambitious goals of the Summit for Children.
I had circulated my tribute to Mulroney to several XUNICEF colleagues and some friends of UNICEF who greatly admired Jim Grant and were inspired by his legacy. Among them, RESULTS Canada & UNICEF NatCom in Canada. Some of them had posted the obituary on their social media.
ECF is a partner with RESULTS USA (of which I have been the Chair of the Board) as well as RESULTS Canada. During some nutrition advocacy-related discussions with visiting ECF executives, RESULTS Canada had shared my obituary of Brian Mulroney and described Canada’s longstanding commitment to child survival and nutrition. ECF officials were apparently very intrigued and fascinated after reading the obituary and started digging up more information about Jim Grant’s extraordinary legacy (about which they had already heard a little bit from UNICEF and RESULTS).
Then they contacted members of the Grant family, who in turn shared with ECF a proposal for a ‘Jim Grant Award for Child Survival and Development’ that I had drafted and circulated with several friends of JPG, including UNICEF ED Henrietta Fore, senior staff and Board members of RESULTS.org, etc. Some of us had even reached out to the Gates Foundation and others to drum up support for a JPG Award. Alas, following the onset of the COVID crisis, this proposal had remained dormant.
But after reading my draft proposal and talking to the Grant family, ECF executives became more interested and excited about establishing an Award honoring Jim Grant. They then contacted me, my colleagues at RESULTS USA, and at a later stage, UNICEF HQ to obtain its support (or at least “no objection”). And then ECF decided to establish the JPG Award. The rest, as they say, is history, as I describe in my message below.
Thus, in a real sense, it was the Brian Mulroney obituary that triggered the momentum for the establishment of the Award.
We can be thankful that just like at WSC in 1990, Brian Mulroney once again came forth (posthumously) to help perpetuate the grand legacy of Jim Grant which continues to inspire so many of us.
https://xunicefnewsandviews.blogspot.com/2024/03/missing-you-brian-mulroney-rip-tribute.html
| Missing You – Brian Mulroney, RIP – A Tribute by Kul GautamToday we join the people of Canada in mourning the passing of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. He was a larger-than-life figure in Cana…xunicefnewsandviews.blogspot.com |
| The Eleanor Crook Foundation and the Grant Family Announce the creation of the James P. Grant Child Survival Award/PRNewswire/ — The Eleanor Crook Foundation (ECF) has announced the creation of the James P. Grant Child Survival Award. The award was jointly announced by…www.prnewswire.com |
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Kul Chandra Gautam