São Paulo – Oncologist Riad Younes, the Marketing vice president of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, was honored on Thursday evening (26) with the Ateneu Rotário 2017 award by the São Paulo Rotary Club. The award is granted to personalities and organizations whose work leads to improvements in society or human beings.
The ceremony was held at the headquarters of the São Paulo Rotary Club, in São Paulo. Younes, a native of Lebanon who arrived in Brazil in September 1976, was honored in the Health category in recognition for his medical and science research work. The Arab Brazilian Chamber’s president Rubens Hannun and International Relations vice president Osmar Chohfi were in attendance.
After accepting the award from Ateneu Rotary Board chairman and Arab Brazilian Chamber Treasury director Nahid Chicani, the Arab Chamber vice president said: “I would like to thank the São Paulo Rotary Club for this honorable award. The Rotary carries the flag of helping people without any interest, and I am and always have been interested in this flag,” he said.
Younes said his activities are carried out in two fronts: the professional and the academic one. In addition to his work as a physician, he conducts scientific research and performs voluntary charity activities. “These things are not a choice: they are a responsibility and an obligation. And this is the foundation of Riad, the human being, much more so than Riad, the physician,” he explained.
Established in 1974, the Ateneu Rotário award has been given to 29 organizations and to more than 300 people. After a 15-year hiatus – the accolade had last been given in 2002 –, the award resumed this year. Also honored besides Younes were General João Camilo Pires de Campos, the military commander of Brazil’s Southeast; businessman and São Paulo mayor João Doria Júnior; professor José Renato Nalini; architect Paulo Machias Mendes da Rocha; and Instituto Brasileiro de Governança Corporativa (IBGC, the Brazilian corporate governance institute).
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
