KidsRights announces finalists international children's peace prize on 20th anniversary

KIDSRIGHTS ANNOUNCES FINALISTS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S PEACE PRIZE ON ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARY

·      Three extraordinary youngsters are in the running for the International Children’s Peace Prize 2024, the most important and prestigious youth prize in the world:

o   Sarah Shelke (aged 16, USA)

o   Adhi Daiv (aged 18, India)

o   Nila Ibrahimi (aged 17, Canada)

·      In the prize’s 20th anniversary year, these young candidates have been recognised for their outstanding campaigns tackling youth mental health crisis, combating desertification & water scarcity and advocating for the rights of girls in Afghanistan

·      The jubilee book “Changemakers: 20 stories that changed the world” is published on the occasion of the 20th anniversary and will be distributed worldwide. The digital version is available free of charge to youth under 25 around the globe

·       The winner will be announced in a ceremony set to take place in De Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam on Tuesday 19th November 2024

·       Young changemakers from around the globe are nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize, previously won by Malala Yousafzai, Greta Thunberg and Nkosi Johnson

The international children’s rights organisation, KidsRights, has announced the finalists for its annual International Children’s Peace Prize. In its 20th anniversary year, the award highlights the remarkable achievements of young changemakers fighting courageously for children’s rights across the world.

After receiving 165 nominations from 47 countries, reflecting the International Children’s Peace Prize’s prestige and the global platform on offer, a shortlist of three incredible finalists has been selected by a panel of experts.

Sarah Shelke is a 16-year-old girl from the United States who is on a mission to solve the mental health crisis for young people in her country, setting up a non-profit organisation providing resources to address systemic barriers in mental healthcare.

Adhi Daiv is an 18-year-old from India transforming the barren deserts of Rajasthan into lush, green landscapes in an effort to address water scarcity concerns for children in his home country.

Nila Ibrahimi is a 17-year-old Afghanistan-native, residing in Canada, courageously fighting for the rights of girls and women in her home country. After recording a powerful protest song that went viral online, she continues to inspire other Afghan girls to assert their rights and stand up to the injustices they face via public speaking and advocacy at global events.

Following a visit to London last year, the ceremony will return to where it was founded, Amsterdam, to celebrate its landmark 20th anniversary on Tuesday 19th November. It will also be livestreamed so that the winner’s message can reach a global audience with last year’s winner reaching millions of people worldwide.

The jubilee book “Changemakers: 20 stories that changed the world” is published on the occasion of the 20th anniversary and will be distributed worldwide. The digital version is available free of charge to youth under 25 around the globe.  KidsRights is hoping the book will provide inspiration to the next generation of changemakers.

Each year the International Children’s Peace Prize has been awarded by a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. This year Tawakkol Karman, the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, will declare the winner who will receive the Nkosi Statuette along with a Desmond Tutu Study and Care Grant for their education. The winner will also be eligible to apply for a project fund of €100,000, half of which will support the winner’s project, and the other half invested by KidsRights in projects for other young changemakers fighting for children’s rights.

Announcing the finalists, Marc Dullaert, Founder and Chair at KidsRights said: “This year has seen unprecedented challenges for young people worldwide. However, this year’s nominees for the International Children's Peace Prize are a ray of optimism and an inspiration to us all. They characterise ethical leadership and tenacity by addressing the most urgent matters of our times and for that, we should all be grateful. We look forward to celebrating the 20th anniversary with our finalists and long may we continue to support inspiration youth for years to come.”

The Finalists

Sarah Shelke was only 12 years old when she realised the disparities and inequalities in access to mental health care for youth. After someone she knew committed suicide, Sarah made it her mission to address the challenges faced by marginalised children and youth in speaking about mental health concerns and in accessing mental health resources.

Sarah founded “Mind4Youth” - a nonprofit organisation to provide accessible mental health resources to marginalised children and youth. Under Sarah’s leadership, Mind4Youth has grown to become one of the largest youth-led mental health organisations globally with over 9,800 youth members and 15 chapters, impacting 1.6 million young people in over 40 countries.

Sarah is committed to making systemic changes to improve awareness and access to mental health resources for young people. She has authored the book “A Guide to Teen Mental Health,” aiming to raise mental health awareness among more than 30,000 young adults in collaboration with local libraries. She is also exploring a partnership with a large online educational platform, aiming to expand Mind4Youth’s reach to 52,000 schools across the United States.

For Sarah, one of her greatest achievements lies in the fact that she was able to inspire and mobilise a diverse group of youth to join her cause. Meeting and working with so many young people from varied backgrounds remains a rewarding experience for her. Sarah also takes immense pride in training other young people to become leaders in their communities, even if their focus isn’t specifically on mental health. Hearing feedback from participants in her programs, who have shared the valuable lessons they've learned, further validates her efforts and drives her mission forward.

Sarah's story is one of remarkable perseverance and achievement. Her unwavering dedication to improving access to mental health resources for youth by addressing systemic barriers serves as an inspiring reminder of the power of resilience and the impact youth can make on the world.

Adhi Daiv is on an extraordinary mission to transform the barren deserts of Rajasthan, India into lush, green landscapes. He founded “Urvara - Greening Mother Earth”, a non-profit social enterprise dedicated to combating desertification and water scarcity using an innovative technique that requires just one litre of water per tree for its entire life.

Adhi grew up hearing stories about the daily struggles his mother and other women faced, who had to walk miles and miles to fetch a few litres of water for their households. He also realised that a lack of adequate access to water severely impacts children’s development and pushes them and their families away from their homes. This left a lasting impression on Adhi, fuelling his desire to create a sustainable solution. His first step involved fundraising to provide rural women with water wheels - devices that help carry large amounts of water over long distances. However, he soon realised that this was merely a temporary fix for the larger issues of water scarcity and desertification plaguing the entire region.

Through Urvara, Adhi focuses on community mobilisation to plant trees using the innovative one-litre water technique. He empowers local communities to become stewards of their environment. So far, Urvara has transformed 25 acres of desert into fertile green land, conserving over 1.65 million litres of water in the process. The initiative has directly impacted 50,000 villagers and 10,000 children, providing vital employment opportunities and improving livelihoods.

By employing 250 community members, including 75 youth, Urvara has created a ripple effect of economic empowerment throughout the communities. Adhi envisions Urvara expanding to 100 more acres of land, spanning at least 10 additional villages in the next few years, creating employment opportunities for thousands of people, and a sustainable environment for children.

Nila Ibrahimi is a fearless advocate for the rights of girls in Afghanistan. She discovered the power of her voice amidst the Kabul Education Directorate’s discriminatory decision to ban schoolgirls from singing in public. Refusing to be silenced, Nila spearheaded the singing movement by recording herself singing a powerful protest song online. Her viral singing video in Afghanistan inspired thousands of girls to assert their rights and stand up against discrimination. Nila’s fearless vocal activism forced the then government of Afghanistan to repeal the discriminatory decision within 3 weeks.

Nila’s life changed dramatically when she was 14 as the Taliban took over Afghanistan. She fled with her family to Pakistan before moving to Canada. Since then, Nila has been actively advocating to safeguard the rights of girls from Afghanistan.

Nila advocates with various essential stakeholders in the fight for equal access to education for Afghan women and girls. Her advocacy efforts support over 4,000 girls in accessing alternative educational opportunities in Afghanistan. She has been the voice of Afghan girls at various events, including at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, the UK House of Lords, Canadian Women for Women of Afghanistan Montreal Summit and TED Vancouver.

Nila co-founded “Her Story”, an initiative to provide a safe platform for Afghan girls to share their stories. Through Her Story, Nila highlights the potential and resilience of Afghan girls, both inside and outside of Afghanistan. She is fighting for the education rights of all Afghan girls and women who are losing out on valuable schooling due to the discriminatory ban on their education. Nila’s message to children worldwide is to seek opportunities and to support one another, as every story and voice holds the potential to inspire positive change.

Nila’s fight for the rights of girls is even more important now as the Taliban has again imposed laws that ban girls and women in Afghanistan from speaking or singing in public places.

The International Children’s Peace Prize

The prestigious International Children’s Peace Prize was launched in 2005 during the World Summit of Nobel Peace laureates in Rome, chaired by Mikhail Gorbachev. The International Children’s Peace Prize is the most important and prestigious youth prize in the world. It is awarded annually to a child who has made a significant contribution to advocating children's rights and improving the situation of vulnerable children. The message of the young winner is broadcasted by international media and reaches hundreds of millions of people globally. 

Impact and Legacy

Last year’s winners of the International Children’s Peace Prize, Anastasiia Demchenko, Sofiia Tereshchenko and Anastasiia Feskova from Ukraine, were recognised for their resilience and efforts to safeguard the lives and rights of refugee children. After becoming the winners, they were invited to advise the Council of Europe on the refugee children’s policies.

KidsRights is proud of the global impact their laureates have made, such as in 2011 when the then unknown Malala was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize. After this, she became famous worldwide.  In 2013, Malala Yousafzai was awarded the International Children’s Peace Prize in recognition of her bravery in speaking out for every girl’s right to an education. This was crucial for her winning of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, becoming the youngest ever Nobel laureate. Sadat Rahman from Bangladesh won the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2020 for developing an anti-cyberbullying app. After winning the International Children’s Peace Prize, the app became mandatory in all schools in Bangladesh. Recently, the government of Bangladesh launched Sadat’s national toll-free helpline number for young people so that they have easy access to share their cyberbullying issues. In 2022, Rena Kawasaki from Japan won the International Children’s Peace Prize in recognition of her fight to increase child participation in Japan. Rena’s speech during the ceremony led to a discussion on youth participation concerns by the Prime Minister of Japan in the parliament.

About KidsRights

KidsRights is an international non-governmental children’s rights organization that strives for a world where all children have access to their rights and are enabled to realise the great potential they carry within them. KidsRights sees children as changemakers with the power to move the world, and facilitates in voicing their opinions and taking action in order to bring about change. KidsRights supports children by commanding global attention for the realization of children’s rights and acts as a catalyst to ignite change, together with children and youth. KidsRights is the founder of the prestigious International Children's Peace Prize, the world’s first digital borderless state – The State of Youth – and the organisation behind the first and only global annual KidsRights Index.

Please visit the website to find out more about KidsRights: www.kidsrights.org

International Children’s Peace Prize Expert Committee

The selection panel comprises:

Marc Dullaert

Founder and Chairman of the KidsRights Foundation and Founder of the International Children’s Peace Prize.

Benyam Mezur

Member and Former Chairperson of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Jo Becker

Advocacy Director Human Rights Watch, Children’s Rights Division.

Tawakkol Karman

Winner Nobel Peace Prize 2011, Human rights activist, journalist, politician, president of Women Journalists without Chains organisation.

Yanghee Lee

Professor, developmental psychologist, special rapporteur of the UN on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Former Chairperson of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.