Sparta attorney honored with statewide citation

Sparta — Each year the New Jersey State Governor’s Jefferson Awards highlight the spirit of civic engagement among New Jersey’s 1.5 million volunteers and provide Jefferson Awards medals in 22 categories of volunteer service. The 2018 New Jersey State Governor’s Jefferson Awards presentation ceremony and celebration of volunteerism was held at the War Memorial in Trenton on June 2, 2018.
This year, Catherine van Kampen, a Sparta resident and attorney, received the 2018 Ambassador Jefferson Award which recognizes individuals whose exemplary volunteer service beyond the borders of New Jersey have made the world a better place while reflecting favorably on the people of the Garden State. Mrs. van Kampen, a longtime resident of New Jersey, is a graduate of Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Princeton, where she was recently inducted into the Distinguished Alumnae Gallery for her humanitarian work, and is also a graduate of Indiana University, Bloomington, and Seton Hall University School of Law, in Newark, where she interned at the Center for Social Justice in the Immigration Law Clinic.
Catherine volunteers for humanitarian organizations in Iraq that provide medical, financial and material aid to Yezidis and Christians. Yezidis and Christians have been subjected to genocide, enslavement, torture and sexual abuse by ISIS fighters. Catherine volunteers for humanitarian, refugee and justice causes, working with Pari Ibrahim, Founder of the Free Yezidi Foundation, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Kurdistan, Iraq, as well as Hatim Ido of Yazda in the USA, Anne Norona, Founder of Yezidi Emergency Support in the United Kingdom, and Dr. Mariwan Baker, Founder of the Bring Hope Humanitarian Foundation, based in Sweden and Kurdistan, Iraq.
Catherine helps facilitate medical services, provides free legal advice to refugees and immigrants, supports several orphaned Yezidi children, and helps find funding from international partners to continue working towards ending these abuses.
She believes Americans have a responsibility to help Yezidis and Christians in their journey of healing. Catherine van Kampen’s compassion and commitment to victims of injustice in Iraq are why she was the recipient of the 2018 Jefferson Award “Ambassador” Medallion.
The Jefferson Awards, established in 1972, are issued by Jefferson Awards Foundation and were founded by Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as the official recognition program of the United States Senate. They are considered America’s highest honor for public service and volunteerism.
In New Jersey, the awards are also the official recognition program of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Volunteerism, administered by a partnership that includes the NJ Office of Volunteerism, NJ Advance Media, the Community Foundation of New Jersey, and corporate sponsors, such as PNC Bank, PSEG, BD and others.