Winners of

 the Nobel Prize for Peace

The Nobel Prize for Peace is awarded, according to the will

of Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Bernhard Nobel,

to “the person who has done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Unlike the other prizes, the Peace Prize may be awarded to an institution. It is conferred by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.

   The 14th Dalai Lama,

an exiled religious and political leader of Tibet, was born Lhamo Thondup (also spelled Dhondup) in 1935 in what is currently Tsinghai province, China, of Tibetan parentage. He was recognized as the incarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama in 1937, enthroned in 1940, and vested with full powers as head of state in 1950. He fled to exile in India in 1959, the year of the unsuccessful revolt by Tibetans against communist Chinese forces that had occupied the country since 1950. The Dalai Lama set up a government-in-exile in Dharmsala, India, in the Himalayan Mountains. In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his nonviolent campaign to end Chinese domination of Tibet. In the first decade of the 21st century, the Dalai Lama suggested that his successor could be appointed by him rather than selected as his reincarnation; this idea was rejected by the Chinese government, which declared that the tradition of appointing a new Dalai Lama had to be upheld. In 2011 he stepped down as head of the Tibetan government-in-exile. He has written a number of books on Tibetan Buddhism and an autobiography Freedom in Exile, which was published in 1990.

       Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa was a simple nun. She never wanted to be famous, but every­one in the world knew who she was. She received many important awards. She travelled around the world to accept them. She asked people for help. Then she gave everything to the poor.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in 1910 in what is now Macedonia. She was the youngest of three children. Agnes’s father died when she was a child. Her mother made dresses to support the family. Agnes’s mother also liked to do charity work, such as visiting the sick. Agnes often went with her, and she enjoyed helping these people. She was a good and re­ligious girl.

Even as a child, Agnes wanted to be a nun. When she was 18 years old, she joined a group of nuns in Darjeeling, India. There, she chose the name Teresa. Then she went to Calcutta to work at St. Mary’s School. The school was in a con­vent. Sister Teresa lived in the convent and worked at the school for 20 years. She eventually became the principal. During all those years, Sister Teresa was always concerned about how other people lived. The convent had clean buildings and beautiful lawns. But outside the convent, the streets were dirty and crowded and full of very poor people.

One day in 1946, Sister Teresa was riding on a train to Darjeeling. She looked out of the window and saw dirty children. They were wearing rags and sleeping in doorways. Sick and dying people were lying on filthy streets. She loved her work at the school, but she realized that other people needed her help more. At that moment, she believed God sent her a message. She decided to go to work with the poor.

Two years later, Sister Teresa left the convent. First, she went to a hospital to learn to take care of sick people. After three months, she was ready to live with the poor and the sick. One day, she saw a group of poor children and called them to her. She told them she was going to open a school. The school had no roof, no walls, and no chairs. On the first day, only five students came. She used a stick to write lessons in the dirt.

Several months later, Sister Teresa had many students. Everyone in Calcutta knew about her. A friend let her use part of his house for the school. She taught the children language and math. She also taught them how to keep clean and stay healthy. Soon, other nuns came to help her. Sister Teresa was happy that they wanted to join her. But she told them that life with her was not easy. She said that everyone had to wear the same clothes — white cotton saris. She wanted all the nuns to look like the poor people in India.

In 1948, Sister Teresa started her own group of nuns. They were called the Missionaries of Charity. She was their leader, so they called her “Mother” Tere­sa. The nuns lived in the slums with people who were poor, dirty, and sick. It was hard work and the days were long. But many young nuns came from around the world to join Mother Teresa.

One day, Mother Teresa saw an old woman in the street. She took her to a hospital. They refused to help the woman because she was poor. Mother Ter­esa decided to open a place for the sick and the dying. Later, she started homes for children without families. She also started clinics. Over the years, news of her work spread around the world. Many people sent her donations of money. Oth­ers came to work with her in India or other places. By 1990, the Missionaries of Charity were working in 400 centres around the world.

Over the years, Mother Teresa received many great awards, such as the Nobel Peace Prize. But she always said her greatest reward was helping people. Her message to the world was, “We can do no great things — only small things with great love”. She died in 1997 at the age of 87. The whole world mourned her death.

    Martin Luther King, Jr.

African American religious leader and civil-rights activist, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent campaign against racism. King adhered to Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence. At the age of 35, he became the youngest man, and only the second African American, to receive this prestigious award.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta in 1929, the son of a Baptist minister. He received a doctorate degree in theology and in 1955 organized the first major protest of the civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated nonviolent civil disobedience to racial segregation. The peaceful protests he led throughout the American South were often met with violence, but King and his followers persisted, and their nonviolent movement gained momentum.

A powerful orator, he appealed to Christian and American ideals and won growing support from the federal government and northern whites. In 1963, 250,000 demonstrators marched to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, where King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech. Martin Luther King dreamt that all inhabitants of the United States would be judged by their personal qualities and not by the color of their skin. The following year, President Johnson got a law passed prohibiting all racial discrimination. In October of that year, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He donated the prize money, valued at $54,600, to the civil rights movement.

In the late 1960s, King openly criticized U.S. involvement in Vietnam and turned his efforts to winning economic rights for poor Americans.

In April 1968 he was murdered by a white racist.

      Nadia Murad

Nadia Murad, (born 1993, Kawjū (Kocho), Iraq), Iraqi human right activist who was kidnapped by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levan (called ISIS) in 2014 and sold into sex slavery.  She manage to escape 3 months later, and made her way to a refugee camp. Shortly thereafter she began speaking out about human trafficking and sexual violence, especially as these issues pertained to Yazīdī women. Nadia Murad also spoke about the mistreatment of the Yazīdī community more broadly.

In 2016 the UN appointed her Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. She wrote a memoir on her capture and escape, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State, and founded Nadia’s Initiative, an organization advocating for the rights of women and minorities and assisting in redeveloping minority communities facing crisis

In 2018 she was a corecipient, with Congolese physician Denis Mukwege, of the Nobel Prize for Peace.

  Doctors Without Borders

Doctors Without Borders, an international Humanitarian organisation dedicated to providing medical care to people in distress, including victims of political violence and natural disasters. The populations the group assists typically lack access to or adequate resources for medical treatment. The group was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize for Peace.

“Doctors Without Borders” was founded in 1971 by 13 physicians and journalists who were dissatisfied with the neutrality of the Red Cross. The founding members believed that people in distress had the right to medical intervention and that the need to provide assistance to those people transcended national borders. They also felt that they had a duty to speak out about injustice, even though it might offend host governments.

In 1972 “Doctors Without Borders” conducted its first major relief effort, helping victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. Other significant missions followed, including the provision of care for victims of fighting in Lebenon (1976), Afganistan (1980), and the Russian republic of Chechnya (1995). “Doctors Without Borders” continued to work to relieve famine, to offer medical care to casualties of war, and to assist refugees in many countries throughout the world. In 2003 Doctors Without Borders was a founding partner in the organization Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), which works to create medicines for diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. The group has played an important role in caring for the victims of disease outbreaks.

“Doctors Without Borders” works in almost 80 countries, and the organization has offices in multiple countries. In addition to providing medical assistance, “Doctors Without Borders” has a reputation as a highly politicized group, particularly skillful in achieving publicity for its efforts. Its vocal opposition to perceived injustice has led to its expulsion from several countries.