Dr. Samuel Lee receives royal recognition
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n 13th September 2020 in Amsterdam, the President of Foundation Academy and the Director at Center for Theology of Migration at VU University, Amsterdam was decorated with a royal medal as a Knight in the Order of Oranje Nassau. The award ceremony was conducted by the Deputy Mayor of Amsterdam, Marjolein Moorman behalf of His Royal Highness, King Willem Alexander of The Netherlands. According to Dr. Samuel Less, it was a humble experience and he is grateful to His Majesty for the recognition. He has continued to receive congratulatory messages from everywhere around the world on this accomplishment. Dr. Samuel Lee is the founding Pastor of Jesus Christ Foundation Church in Amsterdam South-East, which he founded. He receives this award for his 25 years commitment as a Pentecostal theologian and his service for the migrant churches in the Netherlands. He is also praised for his efforts to offer affordable and, most of the time, tuition-fee free academic education for migrants and refugees. As an independent Pentecostal clergy, he also promotes human rights, social justice, interreligious dialogue, inclusion, and peace. Dr. Samuel Lee has lived in the Bijlmer since the age of 14 as a migrant from the Middle East. He studied Sociology and obtained his doctorate in Theology, a subject that he has also been teaching at the VU University for several years. Since he has been in the Netherlands, he has been committed to improving the lot of migrants and undocumented as well by fighting their cases at all levels of society and governmental institutions. He also founded the Foundation Academy of Amsterdam, where everyone can receive lessons in Theology and social sciences and human rights studies for a very low fee and often free of charge. Especially for migrants who have little money or do not have the correct papers, this is the only option to be taught at an academic level.
Dr. Lee is delighted with the award. He himself says about it: “There are also places in the world where people do beautiful things and stand up for freedom and do not receive a medal for it, but a bullet. In that sense, I think it is an honor, but also a responsibility that you stand for justice. He intends to continue his work for a long time and sees the royal decoration as an incentive for other migrants. “On the day I received the award, I received a lot of messages from people with migration background,” says Dr. Lee. “They said: ‘hey, that ribbon also represents something to us, we are also proud, we are happy with it.’ In that sense, the ribbon encourages the entire migrant community.” Congratulations to you, Dr. Samuel Lee from The Voice magazine family.
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