…and gets to ring the NYSE bell!

The Thomson Reuters Foundation was  honored by the Women’s Refugee Commission with its Voices of Courage Award. The award is bestowed each year to two honorees and a company with a proven track record of leadership in the humanitarian arena.

The Foundation received the award for its AlertNet humanitarian website and its “innovative approach to providing critical information on humanitarian crises to humanitarian workers, policy makers and other key players in conflicts and natural disasters.” The award was presented during the 2011 Voices of Courage Luncheon/fundraising event hosted by the Women’s Refugee Commission in NYC.

In recognition of this achievement Foundation CEO Monique Villa and the two refugee honorees, Zrinka Bralo and Stella Mkiliwane, were invited to ring the NY Stock Exchange bell this morning. The Commission honored the refugees from Zimbabwe and Bosnia respectively and now living in South Africa and the United Kingdom, for providing services and assistance to refugees and asylum seekers in those countries. See the video of bell ringing after the jump:

A spokeswoman for the Commission said: “The information that AlertNet provides on natural disasters, conflicts, refugees, hunger, diseases and climate change to relief workers, donors, policy makers, researchers, students, journalists and the general public, is invaluable. The reporting teams it deploys to disaster zones – to disseminate fast, reliable information to affected populations in local languages on everything from how to minimize disease risks to where to get medical help and how to trace missing relatives – are a critical contribution in humanitarian crises.”

For more information on the event and the honorees you can go to this site.

Watch this video for more on AlertNet.