The MP Jo Cox is to receive a posthumous peace prize jointly with the Syrian civil volunteer group known as the White Helmets, which she supported in the last years of her life.

The MP will be remembered next week at the Rising Global Peace Forum, launched in Coventry last year by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The recognition comes as the trial of Thomas Mair, the man accused of shooting Cox on 16 June near her constituency office in Birstall, West Yorkshire, begins tomorrow.

Cox’s husband, Brendan, said that she would have been delighted to see the White Helmets honoured. She had written a letter this year to the Nobel peace prize committee, nominating the civilian group. They lost out to Juan Manuel Santos, the president of Colombia, who was awarded the prize for his work in brokering peace in the country’s long-running civil war.

“Jo was inspired by the White Helmets because they personified some of the best about humankind in some of the worst circumstances,” Brendan Cox said. “These are the people who run towards danger when others run away. They’ve saved over 70,000 lives and helped many more and, for Jo, they were a symbol of how, even in the depth of inhumanity, humanity can still respond and individuals can still find that compassion, that commitment and that service in their hearts.

“Jo worked on Syria for many years and she focused on it not because it was high profile but because it was the clearest case in the world of where civilians were at risk and the international community was ignoring their plight, saving up all sorts of problems for itself in the future. But it’s not just about Syria – this is about standing up for what is right and for our values in the face of threats, and those threats come in different forms.”

He added: “In one of the last speeches that Jo gave she said that all that was required for evil to triumph was for good men and women to do nothing. That is even more true today.” He congratulated those being honoured for standing up against “the threats we are facing to our values”.

White Helmets enter a building damaged during an airstrike in Aleppo province, Syria. Photograph: AP

The Rising peace conference will be held on the anniversary of the Coventry blitz – one of the most devastating nights of the Luftwaffe bombing of Britain in the second world war.

During the raid on 14 November 1940, about 500 tonnes of explosives, including 36,000 incendiary bombs, dropped on the city overnight, killing more than 600 people and leaving many buildings, including its cathedral, in ruins..

Cox was co-chair of the Friends of Syria All-Party Parliamentary Group with the Tory MP Andrew Mitchell, who will be speaking about the refugee crisis at the forum. He said Cox’s “audaciousness and sense of responsibility, not only to her constituency and country but to the entire world, should be taken as example to all in public offices”.

“I’m delighted by the decision to award her and the White Helmets with the global peace prize,” he added, “and I hope this will help in keeping her memory alive for future generations.”

Ciarán Norris, director of the Rising Global Peace Forum, said the organisation had been set up to put a “spotlight on the catastrophic consequences of conflict and the power of peace”. The award was being given to those who embodied these qualities. “Jo Cox worked tirelessly to bring about a better world and is a very deserving winner of this inaugural award. ”

Norris added: “Jo referred to the White Helmets in her nomination letter to the Nobel committee as ‘heroes’. We wanted to recognise their tireless, non-partisan work to help the victims of one of the worst conflicts of modern times.”

• Musicians and MPs are recording a charity single on Thursday to raise cash for the launch of The Jo Cox Foundation, writes Vanessa Thorpe. Four MPs will be joined in the studio by the Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson, KT Tunstall, David Gray, Suzi Quatro and Cockney Rebel’s Steve Harley on a version of the Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want.