The US Institute of Diplomacy and Human Rights (USIDHR) used its 2025 gala—which began as an awards ceremony— as a compelling call to action for strengthening diplomatic efforts in support of human rights worldwide.

The Nov. 19 event, hosted by the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, Va., was organized by Dr. Isabelle Vladoiu, who founded USIDHR in 2019 as an outgrowth of the hardships she experienced growing up in post-communist Romania. The nonprofit champions human rights while offering, among other things, underprivileged children school supplies, scholarships and other resources.

Today, USIDHR is active in 135 countries and has certified more than 20,000 human rights consultants. In 2024 alone, it welcomed over 2,100 new consultants in half a dozen countries from Canada to Congo, from Pakistan to the Philippines.

“As long as there is a child who goes without school tools, a woman who fears without protection, a community that struggles without support, our work continues,” Vladoiu said in her welcoming address.

The notion that USIDHR’s work—and diplomacy in general—is far from abstract but rather “alive, urgent, and the bridge that keeps peace possible” was central to the gala’s theme as a “tribute to duty, freedom and international diplomacy.”

Several DC-based ambassadors attended the event, including Lithuania’s Gediminas Varvuolis, who said that his people “know what it means to lose freedom”—an experience shaped by the Baltic nation’s half-century under Soviet domination.

Emphasizing that peace is never a guarantee, Varvuolis urged fellow diplomats to affirm freedom as their “duty and honor,” achievable only through “international cooperation from Washington to Vilnius to Bucharest” and beyond.

Sudan’s ambassador to the US, Mohamed Abdalla Idris, called for the world to “act now, not with condemnation—though it is important—but with decisive measures to protect the innocent Sudanese people who are being tortured, raped and killed daily.” Idris offered his condolences to the hundreds of thousands of victims of Sudan’s ongoing civil war, adding that his people cannot endure further silence from the international community.

Vladoiu reminded the evening’s attendees that even the smallest individual actions can help the cause of freedom, a truth she came to understand personally, having been born in Romania at a time when “belief was something you hid, not something you lived.”

The ambassadors of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea and Serbia attended the USIDHR event, along with diplomats representing Croatia, Gabon, North Macedonia and Thailand, as well as US government officials.

Such was the message conveyed by USIDHR’s President, Manuel Oancia, during his welcoming statement.

“We are not doing just education. We are not just creating a movement. We transform,” said USIDHR President Manual Oancia, who’s also Vladoiu’s husband.

Following the welcome reception, four people—Dr. Nancy Atmospera-Walch, Jan Du Plain, Cristina Herea and Vadim Saratovtsev—received the USIDHR’s 2025 “Legacy Award” for efforts ranging from disability inclusion and healthcare to public diplomacy and domestic violence legal reforms.

Another four won this year’s “Prestige of Nations Award” for advancing global partnership, diplomacy and international cooperation: LGL’s George Nedelcu; EOR’s Bob Beringer; Judith Dubose of JAD Associates; and Duke Gerhart Walch of the Principality of Capadoccia.

Vladoiu and Oancia also were honored; both received the Crystal Tower Award 2025, presented by Crown University for their dedication to global human rights. “We push every day, every minute and each second, because someone outside of this room needs you,” remarked Oancia in accepting the award.