Friday NAWF Heritage Award Concert Dinner

Llinos Haf Jones ~ Mezzo Soprano
Llinos won the prestigious Osbourne Roberts Prize – The Blue Riband following her success in the Mezzo Soprano Solo competition at the 2023 National Eisteddfod and was consequently awarded the William Park-Jones Scholarship and the London Welsh Male Voice Choir Scholarship.
Llinos has recently started her postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music under the tutelage of Marcus van den Akker and Joseph Middleton and is a grateful recipient of the Baroness de Turckheim Award. Llinos completed her undergraduate studies at the Royal Northern College of Music with first class honours. During her time there she won the Gwilym Gwalchmai Jones Scholarship, the James Martin Oncken Song Prize and the Manchester Welsh

The North America Wales Foundation is pleased to announce the presentation of the 2024 recipient of its Heritage Medallion: the Welsh Women’s Peace Petition Partnership, which is marking the centenary of the remarkable Peace Appeal of 1923–24. The group was inspired by the formation of Heddwch Nain/Mamgu, in Wales in 2017 and in the US in 2019, to remember the almost 400,000 women of Wales who, after World War I, worked for peace and petitioned the US to join the League of Nations. The award is the Foundation’s highest honor, given to individuals or organizations distinguished by their contributions to North American Welsh life.
Mererid Hopwood chairs the Women's Peace Petition Partnership, which includes Heddwch Nain/Mamgu Cymru (Our Grandmother’s Peace Wales), the Welsh Centre of International Affairs, the Peace Academy (Academi Heddwch), the Women’s Archive Wales, the Smithsonian Institute, the National Library of Wales, and the National Museums of Wales, plus several other organizations. Ann Griffith spearheads Heddwch Nain/Mamgu UD (Our Grandmother’s Peace USA). Along with Susan Davies Sit, its members include Eirlys Barker, Annie Rodgers, Jacqueline Burek, Ellen Jones Siuta, Jessie Roberts, and Margaret West.
Representatives of the Partnership on both sides of the Atlantic will be recognized at the North America Wales Foundation Heritage Award and Gala Banquet on Friday, August 30, 2024, as part of the North American Festival of Wales, to be held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 28 through September 1.
In 1924, a delegation of three Welsh women sailed to America with a Petition and an Appeal for peace bearing 390,296 signatures and presented it to the women of the US at a formal event on February 19 at the Biltmore Hotel in New York. A few days later, they met with President Calvin Coolidge, who agreed to keep the Petition and Appeal at the Smithsonian Museum, where it remained until rediscovered in 2018. With the help of the Partnership, the Petition and its volumes of signatures, protected in its oaken chest, were returned to Wales in 2023. The National Library of Wales is the new home of the Petition and is now working to digitize the original petition with the help of volunteers on both sides of the Atlantic. The Partnership continues to “remember, celebrate and realize” the dream and to honor those who signed the petition, and encourages people today to continue to campaign for peace.
The North American Wales Foundation is proud to honor those in 1923–24 and 2023–24 whose peace-building endeavors continue to strive for a world without war.

Established in 1980, the North America Wales Foundation was the initiative of several individuals, inspired by the late Jack K. Evans, a native of Wales. The Foundation has a commitment to preserve, share and promote the common culture and traditions of Wales and North America. The NAWF has distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars in awards over the years and runs an annual scholarship and grant program. Its highest honor, the Heritage Medallion, is awarded to individuals or organizations distinguished by their contributions to North American Welsh life.