Right Livelihood Award
Alternative Nobel Prizes presented in Stockholm
SOS Méditerranée’s Abu Sa’da receives the Right Livelihood Award “for her life-saving humanitarian search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.” photo
© Magnus Lejhall/TT/TT NEWS AGENCY/AP
For more than 40 years, the Right Livelihood Award has honored courageous individuals and organizations committed to human rights, the environment and peace.
The European aid organization SOS Méditerranée, environmentalists from Cambodia and activists from Ghana and Kenya were honored with the Right Livelihood Award in Stockholm. Three representatives from Mother Nature Cambodia, women’s rights activist Eunice Brookman-Amissah from Ghana, Kenyan environmentalist Phyllis Omido and Caroline Abu Sa’da from SOS Méditerranée in Switzerland accepted the awards, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prizes, on Wednesday evening.
This year’s winners are witnesses to unspeakable suffering and are committed to saving lives, preserving nature and protecting the dignity and livelihoods of people all over the world, said the foundation. Brookman-Amissah paved the way for liberalized abortion laws and better access to safe abortions. Omido advocates for the land and environmental rights of local groups in Kenya. Mother Nature Cambodia fights fearlessly to protect the people despite severely limited democratic rights Environment. And SOS Méditerranée saved the lives of around 39,000 migrants in the Mediterranean. Foundation director Ole von Uexküll took up one of Omido’s comments and said that anyone who wants to change the world simply has to start doing it.
The Right Livelihood Award has been presented annually since 1980 to courageous individuals and organizations that support human rights, the environment and peace. This year’s winners were announced at the end of September. The award is at a critical distance from the actual Nobel Prizes, whose winners receive their awards in just over a week and a half in Stockholm and Oslo.