Living City Receives the 2004 Eileen Egan Award

The ninth annual Eileen Egan Award, sponsored by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) for outstanding writing on issues relating to developing countries, was presented to Living City for its three-part article, “Untold Success, A Courageous Servant of Peace” (Aug 2003). Living City writer Susan Kopp, the story’s author, was the journalist selected for the under 35,000 circulation category.

The winners were selected by a 3-judge national panel of journalists from the secular media: Roger Thurow of the Wall Street Journal, Carol Giacomo of Reuters and Rita Cosby of Fox News. The prize was announced during the Catholic Press Association conference in Washington, D.C. this past May.

Kopp’s article looked at the motives and actions behind Uganda ’s success in battling the AIDS epidemic, including an interview with Ugandan Pat h to Peace prize winner Rose Busingye. “The closer we looked and the more we heard about the efforts of the Ugandan people, the more we at Living City realized that their fight against AIDS needed to be brought into the limelight,” explained Kopp. “I wanted to give witness to what a collaborative effort among many could do. I saw it as one of the many small, but important steps towards universal fraternity.”

“A fabulous and very informative story,” Rita Cosby of Fox News commented, “which offers words of inspiration and at the same time practical reasons as to Uganda’s success in beating AIDS.” In the awarding of the prize to Living City, CRS executive director Ken Hackett explained the judges’ decisions, noting that it was “an excellent example of the type of journalism that not only informs but also enlightens, helping to bridge the gap between Americans and their brothers and sisters around the world.”

Catholic Relief Services, founded in 1943 by the Catholic Bishops of the United States , is the official international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Catholic community. It assists people in over 90 countries through numerous projects and collaborative initiatives on the basis of need, not race, creed or nationality. The award is given in memory of writer Eileen Egan, who worked over 40 years with CRS in development projects and refugee assistance in Asia, Latin America and Europe.