Washington DC: On Wednesday, 28 October, 2026, at the nave of Washington National Cathedral, the OXI Day Foundation held its 15th annual OXI Courage Awards. The Cathedral is where most presidents attend a prayer service after their inauguration. The Foundation’s mission is to honour and inspire courage in the world. Each year it presents two OXI Courage Awards, one to a man and one to a woman, who show the kind of David-versus-Goliath courage in the fight against oppression that the Greek people showed during World War II.
The foundation awarded Metropolitan Chrysostomos Award to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama for His lifelong service to humanity, inspiring compassion, oneness of humanity and for His unwavering dedication to non-violent resolution in the pursuit of peace and a better world. Along with that Victoria Roschcyhna awarded this year’s OXI Courage Award for her unrelenting courage, despite detainment and significant risks, in insisting on returning to the front lines on numerous occasions to expose the atrocities in the Russian prisons in which she later died. Toomaj Salehi was awarded this year’s OXI Courage Award for his extraordinary courage to use his lyrics as an Iranian rapper to call out the human rights abuses of the Iranian regime, despite numerous imprisonments and torture.
“OXI,” pronounced “ohee,” is the Greek word for “no.” It was the single word reply by the Prime Minister of Greece gave at 3:00 a.m. on 28 October 1940, when Axis forces demanded that Greece surrender. Greece went on to become the first country to halt the Axis advance, inflicting a blow that contributed to Hitler’s eventual defeat.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt later said of the Greek people, “When the entire world had lost all hope, the Greek people dared to question the invincibility of the German monster, rising up against it the proud spirit of freedom.” Winston Churchill said, “If there had not been the virtue and courage of the Greeks, we do not know which the outcome of World War II would have been.”
Representative Namgyal Choedup attended the special reception hosted by Ambassador of Greece at his residence on Tuesday, 27 October. On Wednesday, 28 October Representative attended the ceremony and delivered his remarks with the acceptance letter from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. His Holiness expressed that recognizing the need for peace and harmony is not enough; people must take concrete steps to bring them about. He explains that in his own life he has promoted warmheartedness, compassion, and tolerance, believing these are the only path to world peace.
-Report filed by Office of Tibet, Washington DC
