The International Children's Peace Prize is awarded annually to a child who has made a significant contribution to advocating children's rights and improving the situation of vulnerable children such as orphans, child labourers and children with HIV/AIDS. It holds a reputation as one of the leading youth prizes internationally.
The prize is an initiative of Marc Dullaert, founder of the KidsRights Foundation, an international children's aid and advocacy organisation based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The winner receives a 100,000 euro donation to benefit a charitable project for children, as well as a statuette, the Nkosi, named in honour of Nkosi Johnson. The statuette is of a child pushing a ball, "show[ing] how a child sets the world in motion."
History The first Children's Peace Prize was launched in November 2005 during the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Rome, an annual meeting of Nobel Peace Prize winners and international organisations such as UNICEF and Amnesty International. "We welcome the launch of Children’s Peace Prize during our summit," the summit's closing statement said.
Mikhail Gorbachev presented the 2005 prize, which was posthumously awarded to Nkosi Johnson, a South African boy who brought international attention to children with HIV/AIDS and founded the Nkosi's Haven home for HIV-positive mothers and children.
The 2006 award was handed out by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Frederik Willem de Klerk in a ceremony at the Binnenhof, the seat of the Dutch parliament in The Hague. The 2007 was presented at the Binnenhof by Bob Geldof and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Betty Williams. The 2008 prize was presented by Desmond Tutu.
In 2018 a finalist was Leilua Lino, a human rights activist from Samoa.
Recipients
Year Recipient Country 2005 Nkosi Johnson 2006 Om Prakash Gurjar 2007 Thandiwe Chama 2008 Mayra Avellar Neves 2009 Baruani Ndume 2010 Francia Simon 2011 Michaela Mycroft 2012 Kesz Valdez 2013 Malala Yousafzai 2014 Neha Gupta 2015 Abraham Keita 2016 Kehkashan Basu 2017 Mohamad Al Jounde 2018 March for Our Lives 2019 Greta Thunberg Divina Maloum 2020 Sadat Rahman 2021 Vihaan and Nav Agarwal 2022 Rena Kawasaki 2023Sofia Tereshchenko, Anastasia Feskova and Anastasia Demchenko2024Nila Ibrahimi2025Bana al-Abed
Similar awards
The World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child is awarded yearly by Swedish organisation Children's World.
An International Children's Peace Prize was also handed out by the San Francisco-based Children as the Peacemakers Foundation. The Global Peace Index of the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) issued a World Children Peace Prize; winners included Licypriya Kangujam.
Sources The Children's Peace Prize KidsRights Foundation World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates closing statement Telegraaf (Dutch) Children as the Peacemakers Foundation
References
External links Winners International Children's Peace Prize