H.E. Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, President and Founder of the SMWIPM, and Chair of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Board of Trustees, attended a ceremony at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) honoring Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali, Former UN Secretary General.
Dr. Ghali was recognized for donating his personal archive of photos, documents and other materials related to his term of office as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and UN Secretary General as well as an original copy of the Description de l’Egypte, a series of publications, appearing first in 1809 and continuing until the final volume appeared in 1829. Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Library of Alexandria, expressed his gratitude and appreciation for Dr. Boutros Ghali’s confidence in the BA by entrusting his valuable documents to the library’s safe-keeping. The BA is currently working on compiling all these materials in a digital archive.
Dr. Serageldin then reviewed the history of the Description and summarized some of its invaluable documentation of life in Egypt which had been meticulously recorded by the scientists, scholars and historians who accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt in 1798 to 1801.
H.E. Mrs. Mubarak presented Dr. Ghali with two commemorative plaques, after which Dr. Ghali gave a short address expressing his personal appreciation of Mrs. Mubarak’s continuous support throughout his professional career and his gratitude for being honored by the Bibliotheca.
The ceremony was attended by Mrs. Boutros Boutros Ghali, H.E. Youssef Boutros Ghali, Minister of Finance, Board members of the BA and the Institute for Peace Studies, friends and colleagues.
Following the ceremony, Mrs. Mubarak went on a tour of the new expansions and exhibitions at the BA. She also chaired the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Peace Studies (IPS), which is affiliated to the Suzanne Mubarak Women’s International Peace Movement (SMWIPM) and hosted at the BA.