Mozaik Foundation announced the names of the winners of this year's DOBRO Award for philanthropy. This year's call for nominations for the award received a total of 196 applications, of which 169 were following the technical criteria of the award, and after the process of accepting nominations, a total of 63 nominations were selected by the committee in three basic categories and three subcategories of the award. This year, for the first time, the DOBRO award for philanthropy was awarded to members of the emigration (diaspora) from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The award was given to Mahira and Semir Tanović, a married couple originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who for many years have been supporting numerous philanthropic activities in our country from the United States of America. Dr. Mahira Tanović is a specialist in plastic surgery, owner of a private practice in New York, and a professor at Hofstra University. She is currently the president of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian-American Academy of Arts and Sciences (BHAAAS), the largest organization of academic emigration from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dr. Tanović regularly performs operations in Mostar on a volunteer basis on patients whose treatment requires her type of surgical profile, as well as on patients who are financially vulnerable and provides training to surgical residents in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Semir Tanović is a businessman; he works in one of the management positions at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York (Managing Director of Operations). The foundation where Tanović is employed provides every organization that receives a donation from the married couple Tanović with a triple "match," i.e., an amount three times higher than their donation. In his free time, Tanović helps members of the emigration from Bosnia and Herzegovina to the USA, as well as others from the former Yugoslavia, in finding employment and advancing their careers. He is also very active in the work of BHAAAS. The married couple Tanović helps the following organizations in BiH and emigrants from BiH with monetary donations and volunteer work: BHAAAS, Bosana Foundation (an organization that provides scholarships to children and students in BiH), EDUS (an organization that works with children with special needs in BiH), Our Children's Home Mostar, Bosnian Film Festival in New York, Bosnia Futures Foundation, and other organizations. The DOBRO award for these two prominent members of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian-American Academy of Arts and Sciences (BHAAAS) is also a recognition of this organization for their enormous contribution to the development of BiH through the transfer of knowledge, contribution to the development of medicine in BiH through their own involvement and volunteer work of BHAAAS members in medical institutions in BiH, donations of medical and other equipment, organization of study visits to clinics in the USA for specialists from BiH, mentoring of PhD students from BiH, organization of scientific gatherings in BiH, personal donations, and other contributions to the development of BiH. The initiative to include the emigration category in the awarding of the DOBRO award for philanthropy of the Mozaik Foundation was initiated by the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of BiH following the document "Policy on Cooperation with Emigration," adopted by the Council of Ministers of BiH in 2017, which provides for the awarding of measure awards and recognitions to emigrants for their various contributions to the development of BiH. (https://mojabih.oslobodjenje.ba/)
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