STOCKHOLM (AP) – Children’s rights activist and Nobel Peace winner Malala Yousafzai has received the World’s Children’s Prize 2014 – a global vote involving millions of children.
The Sweden-based awards organization said Wednesday the 17-year-old Pakistani girl, who began speaking out for the rights of girls at age 11 and was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman, won the prize for “her courageous and dangerous fight for girls’ right to education.”
The 2014 World’s Children’s honorary awards went to former U.S. Microsoft executive John Wood for promoting children’s reading programs and to Nepalese social worker Indira Ranamagar for helping prisoners’ children.
The annual prize, worth $50,000, is given for work toward “a more humane world in support of the rights of the child.” The honorary awards are worth $25,000 each.