The spokesman of the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone has been awarded the Charles J. Turck Global Citizen Award from Macalester College in the United States from where he graduated in 1977. The Award honors the legacy of Charles J. Turck, president of Macalester College from 1939 to 1958. Andersen has come a long way from Maple Plain, Minn. - both figuratively and literally. And Macalester, he says, was the catalyst for that.
“It was the curriculum, the exposure to fellow students from many countries, and the opportunity to study abroad,” that set him off on this path, he says.
Almost a decade ago, Andersen moved back to Sierra Leone, a country he’d grown to love while serving in the Peace Corps in the late ’70s and early ’80s. He is not only married to a Sierra Leonean wife, but his website on Sierra Leone served as the most trusted and dedicated website on Sierra Leone. Up to present, it has the largest volume of documentation on the country.
What is Andersen proudest of? “When the people of Sierra Leone were in desperate circumstances, I did everything I could to help them, and to make sure that the world could not turn its back on them.”
Andersen is the fourth Macalester graduate to receive the Charles J. Turck Global Citizen Award. It was previously given to Tonderai Chikuhwa '96, a Senior Adviser at the United Nations; Steven Laible ’67, who, with his wife Nancy, began supporting girls in Bengali. In 2011, it was awarded to former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan who graduated from Macalester in 1961. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}
Peter Andersen honoured with Global Citizen Award
The spokesman of the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone has been awarded the Charles J. Turck Global Citizen Award from Macalester College in the United States from where he graduated in 1977. The Award honors the legacy of Charles J. Turck, president of Macalester College from 1939 to 1958.
Lawyer, educator, social activist, internationalist, and churchman, Turck championed internationalism throughout his tenure. This award recognizes an alumnus who has advanced the internationalist spirit and lived up to the exhortation, “to be a worthy son or daughter of Macalester, you must listen to your hopes and not your fears.
Andersen has come a long way from Maple Plain, Minn. - both figuratively and literally. And Macalester, he says, was the catalyst for that.
“It was the curriculum, the exposure to fellow students from many countries, and the opportunity to study abroad,” that set him off on this path, he says.
Almost a decade ago, Andersen moved back to Sierra Leone, a country he’d grown to love while serving in the Peace Corps in the late ’70s and early ’80s. He is not only married to a Sierra Leonean wife, but his website on Sierra Leone served as the most trusted and dedicated website on Sierra Leone. Up to present, it has the largest volume of documentation on the country.
What is Andersen proudest of? “When the people of Sierra Leone were in desperate circumstances, I did everything I could to help them, and to make sure that the world could not turn its back on them.”
