Joao and Nora Matwawana, a couple from Angola, are the recipients of the Baptist World Alliance's 2007 Denton Lotz Human Rights Award.
The Matwawanas played a pivotal role in peace efforts in Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola since the 1970s.
Their peace efforts included working among the more than one million refugees who fled Rwanda to the DRC in 1994; repeated visits to refugees living in camps in Zambia; visits to Burundi to discuss peace and nation building initiatives with government officials; meeting with a Burundi rebel leader in Holland and South Africa to successfully negotiate peace; the training of Angolan refugees in conflict resolution.
Now retired and living in Canada, the two are the first to be jointly awarded the BWA Human Rights Award, named in honor of BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz, who retires at the end of 2007. The award will be presented during the BWA annual gathering/General Council meeting set for Accra, Ghana, in July of this year.