The Thomson Reuters Foundation received a "Voices of Courage" Award from the Women's Refugee Commission (WRC) during a fundraising event in New York on Tuesday.
The Foundation was honoured for its AlertNet humanitarian news 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".
To mark the occasion, Monique Villa, chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was invited by the WRC to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
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."
The "Voices of Courage" Award is awarded each year to corporations and individual refugees. Besides the Foundation, WRC also honoured two refugee women -- Zrinka Bralo and Stella Mkiliwane, who are working to improve the lives of refugees displaced or seeking asylum in urban areas.
The Women's Refugee Commission lobbies for laws, policies and programmes to improve the lives and protect the rights of refugee and internally displaced women, children and young people, including those seeking asylum.
Watch Monique Villa's speech after receiving the "Voices of Courage" Award on YouTube.
Watch a video of Monique Villa ringing the NYSE bell on YouTube.
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