How it continued

Summer 2024

Twenty years later, we are once again in Schiermonnikoog where it all began and where we are marking the next milestones.

In November 2014, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the International Children’s Peace Prize, in the presence of His Majesty King Willem-Alexander and our patron, Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu. Neha Gupta from the US, for the work of the organisation she founded, Empower Orphans, receives the 10th Children’s Peace Prize from the hands of our patron. A large number of Children’s Peace Prize winners are present at this milestone event. During the impressive and at the same time festive anniversary celebration, our patron spontaneously dances along to the live closing music, “All you need is love”, unencumbered by all the high guests in the front row.

The first copy of the anniversary book, with the ten inspiring stories of the Children’s Peace Prize winners was presented to the King and was in Dutch bookstores. It was also received with enthusiasm internationally. Another highlight followed in 2016, when former Children’s Peace Prize winner Malala, now a Nobel Peace Prize winner, presented the Children’s Peace Prize to Mohamad Al Jounde. For his pioneering work as a young Syrian refugee to provide schooling for children in refugee camps in Lebanon.

It is very special that she is standing here now as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, who would have ever thought it when we once discovered her among the Children’s Peace Prize nominees.

In 2018, the presentation of the International Children’s Peace Prize was held outside the Netherlands for the first time, in Cape Town. Desmond Tutu laughed when I said,‘ if Moses does not come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Moses’. Our patron had stopped travelling given his advanced age.

The students of Parkland High School in the United States initiated the March for our Lives after a shooting at their school, they literally got millions of people to march, it was a historic march on Washington, against gun violence in schools. They received the International Children’s Peace Prize at Cape Town City Hall, where once Desmond Tutu stood on the balcony to introduce Nelson Mandela to the South African people as their new president.

In 2018, the then-unknown Greta Thunberg sees how students from Parkland in the United States refused to return to school until stricter gun laws are in place, following the shooting at their school, after which they organised the March For Our Lives. Greta thus gets the idea to go on strike too, but for the climate. Like the US youth, she also feels unsafe, she writes in an essay.

Greta also mobilises millions of young people with her Fridays for Future movement and in 2019, sailing to the COP25 climate conference in Madrid, receives the international Children’s Peace Prize. In the same year, we launched the first borderless digital youth state, State of Youth, which mobilises, connects and helps young people worldwide to initiate positive change, at the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates’ Summit in Merida, Mexico, and the following day at the UN in New York. State of Youth changemakers are now active in 46 countries. A real movement, inspired by the example of the Children’s Peace Prize winners.

Our beloved Desmond Tutu passed away in 2021. At the subsequent ceremony, we commemorated him in the presence of his daughter Mpho with a tribute, singing live simultaneously from Cape Town and The Hague, South Africa’s national anthem, the Nkosi Sikelele, in his honour. In gratitude, the Children’s Peace Prize Study and Care Fund is renamed the Desmond Tutu Study and Care Fund.

We still miss him to this day, but look back with gratitude.

In 2023, the 19th International Children’s Peace Prize was awarded at Whitehall Palace in London, to three young Ukrainian girls. Anastasiia, Sofiia and Anastasiia received the prize for creating help apps for children and young people fleeing war in Ukraine. Desmond Tutu’s daughter, Mpho, opened the ceremony and in the prelude to the presentation moment, Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Ndaba, spoke. Both call for listening to the youth.

How it continued 7 As in previous years, the young winners’ message reached billions worldwide, as many as 3.2 billion people this year.

Each year, the ceremony puts the issue the young winners are fighting for high on the agenda. This has an enormous impact in their own countries and often far beyond. Consequently, the International Children’s Peace Prize is now recognised as the world’s most important youth award and has become an institution. In 2024, the 20th anniversary ceremony of the International Children’s Peace Prize is celebrated. I am very grateful to all those who have made the past 20 years possible. In particular, all those Nobel Peace Prize winners who got behind the International Children’s Peace Prize. But also the KidsRights team and board, our donors and sponsors, volunteers and above all my wife and family.

In short, all those people who carry this special story, first and foremost the brave young winners themselves. This book records the extraordinary history of the Children’s Peace Prize winners of the past 20 years. A history that touches young and old and concerns us all and gives us hope and confidence for the future. We must listen to children and young people and build the future with them.

Truly everyone can contribute to positive change, regardless of their age.

We can be changemakers ourselves.

Marc Dullaert

Chairman and founder KidsRights Foundation.

Curious how it started? Click the button below and read more.

Autumn 2004

It was the autumn of 2004 in Schiermonnikoog, The Netherlands.

One evening, the announcement of the new Nobel Peace Prize winner was on the news. That same evening, there was also a television report about Iqbal Masih, a brave Pakistani boy who had stood up against child labour and paid for it with his life at the age of twelve.

My wife and I asked ourselves: why is there no Nobel Peace Prize for children?

After many journeys across continents, I came to realise that children are not only vulnerable, as they are often perceived, but that they also possess tremendous power and can bring about real change. There was a need for a platform where they could share their message and be heard. That night, the idea for the International Children’s Peace Prize was born.

I began seeking support for the idea among the Nobel Peace Laureates united in the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, led by Mikhail Gorbachev. He was deeply moved when I asked him what he could learn from his grandchildren. As a result, he immediately understood the purpose of the International Children’s Peace Prize.

In November 2005, during the Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates at the Capitol in Rome, the first International Children’s Peace Prize was welcomed and posthumously awarded to Nkosi Johnson, who stood up for the rights of children living with HIV and AIDS.

Since then, year after year, more and more people around the world have been inspired by the courageous stories of winners such as Om Prakash, who stood up against child slavery, Thandiwe, who fought for the right to education in her country, and Chaeli, who championed the rights of children with disabilities.

Not only did the number of nominees grow every year, but the impact increased as well. Government leaders welcomed Children’s Peace Prize winners from their countries and laws were changed for the betterment of children’s rights. The International Children’s Peace Prize reached and touched hundreds of millions of people.

The now world-famous prize also had its darker side. The nomination of Malala from Pakistan proved to be one of the reasons she became a target. Her school headmaster nominated her, then an unknown girl, with a simple letter. We ultimately did not dare award her the Children’s Peace Prize because of concerns for her safety. Who could have imagined what would happen later? The nomination, which brought her into the spotlight, partly contributed to the attempt on her life.

“Hey you oldies, listen to the children and act,” said Desmond Tutu during the International Children’s Peace Prize ceremony in the Knights’ Hall. He became the patron of the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2008.

I still remember our first meeting in 2002 in his modest office in Johannesburg. When I told him about my plans to establish KidsRights, he listened attentively and said in his beautiful African voice: “Aaah, you want to give a voice to the voiceless.”

Even after all these years, it remains my firm belief that children can move the world, just as the beautiful Children’s Peace Prize image shows.

Meanwhile, the Children’s Peace Prize statue, “The Nkosi”, named after the first Children’s Peace Prize winner Nkosi Johnson, has become a powerful icon recognised by children and adults across cultures. It depicts a child literally moving the world. The image was created by my wife, Inge Ikink.

Autumn 2014

Meanwhile, it is autumn 2014. I hear on the radio that Malala has won the Nobel Peace Prize, alongside Kailash Satyarthi. My eyes fill with tears and I immediately reach for the phone to congratulate them. How fantastic.

Together with Kailash, KidsRights has literally helped free thousands of children from child slavery since 2005. We carried out our last rescue operation in May 2014. I can still picture the stunned children emerging from the cramped workshops, unable to believe they were finally free.

Shortly before the radio announcement, we had been sitting around the table at Malala’s home, talking about everything that had happened since her nomination and about educational opportunities for girls, which we are now helping to create through the Children’s Peace Prize Project Fund in Pakistan.

Marc Dullaert
Chairman and Founder, KidsRights Foundation.

Curious about what happened next? Click the button below and read more.