Emma Watson Wins Observer Ethical Award for HeForShe Campaign

by · July 2, 2015

Beyond her role as Hermione Granger, actress Emma Watson has become an advocate for gender equality. Through her work with the United Nations as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, Watson has championed the HeForShe campaign, for which she has already received a number of accolades. Now, she has received an Observer Ethical Award for “campaigner of the year”!

The Observer Ethical Awards are described on their website:

The Observer Ethical Awards, in association with Ecover, have been running for ten years and are our biggest celebration of environmental and social justice yet. They celebrate the people, organisations and campaigners who are leading the way to ensure we have an ethical future.

As the Guardian, a sister publication to the Observer, reports,

Watson was appointed UN Women Goodwill Ambassador in July 2014 and became involved in the organisation’s HeForShe campaign – which calls for one billion men to declare their support for gender equality. […] [T]he speech has been watched more than 7m times on YouTube, and 331,220 men have now signed up for the HeforShe campaign.

UN Women executive director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was quoted as saying,

[Emma Watson’s] commitment to the issues that we work on at UN Women multiplies our ability to reach and engage more young people – who are key to advancing gender equality.

Watson took to Twitter to express her gratitude for having received the award:

You can view the full list of this year’s Observer Ethical Award recipients here.

Congratulations to Emma Watson on her award! What do you think of her work on HeForShe? Let us know in the comments below!