Arwa Damon

Arwa Damon
Peabody Award for CNN's Reporting on the Arab Spring. From left to right Nic Robertson, Tony Maddox, Arwa Damon, Ivan Watson, and Anderson Cooper, May 2012
Peabody Award for CNN's Reporting on the Arab Spring. From left to right Nic Robertson, Tony Maddox, Arwa Damon, Ivan Watson, and Anderson Cooper, May 2012
Born (1977-09-19) September 19, 1977
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Education Double major in French and biology
Alma mater Skidmore College
Occupation Journalist
Notable credit(s) CameraPlanet, CNN, CNN International, INARA
Website Arwa Damon on Twitter

Arwa Damon (born September 19, 1977) is an American journalist who is a senior international correspondent for CNN, based in Istanbul. From 2003, she covered the Middle East as a freelance journalist, before joining CNN in 2006. She is also President and Founder of INARA,[1] a humanitarian organization that provides medical treatment to refugee children from Syria.

Early life and education

Born in Boston to an American father and Syrian mother. Damon spent her early childhood years in Wayland, Massachusetts. Her father, Dr. George H. Damon, Jr, is an American, and her mother, Joumana, is Syrian and grew up in Damascus.[2] Damon is the granddaughter of Muhsin al-Barazi, the former Syrian Kurd prime minister of Syria, who was executed in the August 1949 Syrian coup d'état.[3]

At age 6, Damon and her family moved to Morocco, followed by Istanbul, Turkey three years later, where her father was a teacher and middle school director at Robert College. He went from there to Isıkkent School in Izmir, and was then headmaster of the American Community School at Beirut from 2003 until his retirement in 2013.[4]

Damon skipped sixth grade and graduated with honors from Robert College at the age of 16. She then spent a gap year with her aunt and uncle in Morocco, learning show jumping, before moving to the U.S. to attend Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.[3][5] She graduated with honors in 1999 with a double major in French and biology and a minor in international affairs. She is fluent in Arabic, French, Turkish, and English, having grown up speaking all four languages.

Before becoming a reporter, Damon worked for a high-end New York–based Turkish textile company.

Career

CameraPlanet

Iraq (2003 - 2006)

Damon decided to become a journalist after 9/11, moving to Baghdad prior to the beginning of the Iraq War.[3][6] She began her career at CameraPlanet, a supplier of media content for television newscasts, working to get correspondent Peter Arnett's team into pre-war Iraq. For three years, she covered the Middle East as a freelance producer working with CNN, CNN International, PBS, Fox News and others, before joining CNN in February 2006.

CNN/CNN International

3rd Iraq war (2003 - 2010)

Damon has covered many military and civil events during the invasion and occupation of Iraq. These include the United States Army's Battle of Najaf against the Mehdi Army and the battle to retake Samarra in 2004. She has also reported on the United States Marine Corps' offensive against insurgents in Fallujah and Operation Steel Curtain in Husaybah near the Syrian border.

Civil events Damon has covered include the Iraqi elections of January 2005, the constitutional referendum vote in October 2005, and the Iraqi election of December 2005. She also reported on the trial and executions of Saddam Hussein, Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar in January 2007.

Arab Spring (2010)

Starting in December 2010, Damon covered the Arab Spring from Libya and Egypt.

Syria civil war (2011 - present)

During the whole conflict of the Syrian Civil War, Arwa Damon travelled multiple times to places around and in Syria and to refugee camps for Syrians.[7]

Bengazi (2012)

After the 2012 Benghazi attack, she was one of the early journalists to arrive at the scene and recovered slain Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens' personal diary.[3]

Poaching in Odzala National Park (2013)

In 2013 Damon followed an anti-poaching park ranger unit through Odzala National Park in the Republic of the Congo. The feature was called Arwa Damon Investigates: Ivory War.[8][7]

Boko Haram (2014)

In April 2014 after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping's in which more than 200 Nigerian girls were kidnapped from a school in Chibok by Boko Haram, she travelled to West Africa and the islands of Lake Chad to follow the traces of the hunt for the terrorists.[7]

Syria ISIS (2014 - present)

Damon covered the International military intervention against ISIL multiple times since the beginning of the campaign.[7]

Iraq (2016)

Damon returned to Iraq in the second half of 2016. She covered the Battle of Mosul by Iraqi Government forces with allied militias, Kurdistan Regional Government, and international forces against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as part of the International military intervention against ISIL. She and her team as part of a convoy consisting of press and Iraqi soldiers for their protection, came under heavy fire by IS troops and were trapped. After 28 hours of entrenched fighting, reinforcements of the Iraqi military were able to get the upper hand and rescued them.[7]

Thailand (2018)

She travelled to Thailand to cover the Tham Luang cave rescue.[7]

Antarctic (2018)

Arwa Damon often shows interest in reporting on nature, environmental protection and similar themes. In 2018 she accompanied a Greenpeace group to Antarctica and made a feature of it.[9]

Current (2018)

She is currently based in Turkey.

INARA

INARA
INARA – International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance
INARA – International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance
Established 2015 (2015)
Legal status Active
Headquarters Beirut, Libanon
President
 Arwa Damon
Website www.inara.org
External video
Arwa Damon (December 16, 2016). "Changing narratives: how INARA helps refugee families from Syria". Arwa Damon. Retrieved September 20, 2018.

INARA (the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance) is a humanitarian aid, 501(c)3, non-profit organization was that co-founded by Arwa Damon in 2015 in Beirut, Lebanon. INARA provides medical services for children who have been wounded in war zones. It also provides rehabilitation treatment for its beneficiaries.[10]

Currently the organization focuses on refugee children from Syria. As of August 2018, INARA has managed to provide treatment to over 150 refugee children.[11][12][13]

Current (August 2018) board members are[14]:

  • Arwa Damon – President & Co-founder
  • Luna Madi – Vice President & Co-founder
  • Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah
  • Keely Quinn
  • Amanda Seyfried
  • Thomas Sadoski

The following organizations have provided funding to INARA[15]:

  • The ASFARI Foundation
  • The Secular Society
  • The Ohrstrom Foundation
  • UNICEF[12]
  • World of Children
  • The Kathryn B. McQuade Foundation[11]

Personal life

In 2014, Damon was sued after being accused of biting two EMT's while intoxicated at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. She later apologized for the incident.[16]

She likes to play the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.[17]

Awards

Damon won an Investigative Reporters and Editors' IRE Award for her reporting of the Consulate attack in Benghazi, along with fellow photojournalist Sarmad Qaseera.[18][19]

Damon was part of the CNN team who won the 2012 Emmy Award for Outstanding Live Coverage of a Current News Story – Long Form (Revolution in Egypt: President Mubarak Steps Down).[20][21] In 2014, she was awarded the Courage in Journalism Award given by the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF).[22]

References

  1. ↑ "Our Board". INARA. Retrieved 2016-11-03.
  2. ↑ http://www.acs.edu.lb/page.asp?id=/about-acs
  3. 1 2 3 4 Heidi Mitchell (November 19, 2012). "Facing the Truth: CNN's Arwa Damon". Vogue. pp. 1–3. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
  4. ↑ "Special dinner held recognizing Dr. George H. Damon, Jr., retiring head of the American Community School at Beirut". American Community School, Beirut; News Post. 2013-07-15. Retrieved 2014-07-01.
  5. ↑ CNN Programs – Anchors/Reporters – Arwa Damon CNN.
  6. ↑ Gold, Hadas. "Getting There: CNN's Arwa Damon". Politico. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Official biography at CNN". CNN. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
  8. ↑ Arwa Damon (January 1, 2014). "Arwa Damon Investigates: Ivory War". CNN. Retrieved 2018-08-13.
  9. ↑ Arwa Damon (2018-08-14). "How the Antarctic is helping combat climate change". Retrieved 2018-08-23.
  10. ↑ "INARA – Who we are". www.inara.org. Retrieved 2018-08-17.
  11. 1 2 Kathryn McQuade (July 26, 2018). "Grant awarded to The International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance (INARA)". mcquadefoundation.org. Retrieved 2018-09-17.
  12. 1 2 "Inara Awarded Over $500,000 By Unicef". www.daleel-madani.org. March 29, 2017. Retrieved 2018-09-17.
  13. ↑ TK Maloy (20 June 2017). "INARA: Helping to bridge the gap in medical services for refugee children". Annahar. AN-NAHAR. Retrieved 2018-09-17.
  14. ↑ "INARA – Board". www.inara.org. Retrieved 2018-08-17.
  15. ↑ "INARA – Partners". www.inara.org. Retrieved 2018-08-17.
  16. ↑ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cnn-arwa-damon-bit-medics-drunken-rage-u-s-embassy-baghdad-lawsuit-article-1.1891449
  17. ↑ "Arwas hobbys". Retrieved 2018-08-14.
  18. ↑ "2012 IRE Award winners". Investigative Reporters and Editors. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
  19. ↑ "CNN's Arwa Damon wins 2014 Courage in Journalism Award". CNN. May 16, 2014. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
  20. ↑ "Winners of The 33rd Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards". The Emmy Awards. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
  21. ↑ Arwa Damon on IMDb
  22. ↑ "Arwa Damon: 2014 Courage in Journalism Award". IWMF. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
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