Central Community Recognised in HM The King’s Birthday Honours List, June 2023
Congratulations to Central Vice President Ben Okri and Governing Body Member Daniel Chan who have been recognised in HM The King’s Birthday Honours List.
The King’s first Official Birthday Honours list recognises extraorinary individuals who are helping to combat the major challenges of our time and marks the incredible public service of individuals from across the whole of the United Kingdom.
Central Vice President Ben Okri was awarded a Knighthood Bachelor in the List in recognition of his enormous contribution to literature and the arts. Ben is a poet, playwright and novelist. He has published many books which have won numerous international prizes including the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Africa, the Paris Review Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, the Chianti Ruffino-Antico Fattore International Literary Prize, and the Premio Grinzane Cavour Prize. His book The Famished Road won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1991. In 2019 his novel, Astonishing the Gods, was selected as one of the BBC’s ‘100 novels that shaped our world.’
He has been a Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and is an Honorary Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. The recipient of many honorary doctorates, he is a Vice President of the English Centre of International PEN and was presented the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum for his outstanding contribution to the Arts and to cross-cultural understanding. He was announced as one of Central’s four Vice Presidents in 2022.
Of his Knighthood, Sir Ben Okri said:
“I’m delighted to be given this honour. I think of the illustrious writers who have preceded me and the gifted writers to come. The writer does not write for honours but for truth, the mysterious truth of the human condition.
For me the main value of this honour at this moment is necessity to remind my fellow human beings that we are living on the cusp of a world wide environmental crisis. If we don’t do something radical about it now, within ten years nothing will be the same.
Art is a reminder that the human destiny has to go upwards. This is the moment to reverse our backward thinking and create a new future.
If being honoured means anything it means helping the human race to be better, more civilised, more beautiful.”
An Independent Governor on Central’s Board of Governors, Daniel Chan was awarded an MBE for services to Charity and to Young People and, in particular, for recognition of his role as Honorary Treasurer and Trustee for UK Youth. As Audit Director for PwC, Daniel leads the third sector audit team in London and for charity audits nationally. He also leads PwC’s thought leadership for the charity sector. Daniel heads up the PwC Charity Trustee Network, which supports people who are, or are interested in becoming, charity trustees. He is Chair of the ICAEW Charity Committee and a member of the Charities SORP Committee.
Of his inclusion in HM The King’s Honours List, Daniel Chan MBE said:
“I’m absolutely thrilled and hugely humbled to have received this recognition. It is a real privilege to play a part in making a difference for young people.”
Central Principal and CEO Josette Bushell-Mingo OBE said:
“I was delighted to learn that Ben and Daniel were recognised in HM The King’s Birthday Honours List. These are well deserved accolades in honour of their brilliant work in community and the arts - my heartfelt congratulations to them both. Central is lucky to have them!”
More than 1,000 recipients have been awarded for their outstanding contributions across all sectors and parts of the UK in this year’s Honours List, which also includes a renewed focus on those who have had a profoundly positive impact on how society faces up to the most challenging issues of the modern era. Find out more and view the full Honours List by visiting the Cabinet Office website.
