Asfaw Yemiru wins the World Children's Prize

Charles Opiro,15, and Lina Akello, 17, who were both kidnapped by The Lord´s Resistance Army (LRA) and represent child soldiers and children in war were part of the jury of 15 children from all parts of the world, who awarded Asfaw Yemiru the World's Children's prize and Global Friends Award, reports Childrens world The one-time street-boy Asfaw Yemiru from Ethiopia is awarded The World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child, for the year 2001. This was decided by a jury consisting of 15 children from all over the world. Asfaw won a double victory and also receives the Global Friend's Award in a voting by thousands of students in 15 countries. For nearly 45 years, Yemiru has devoted all of his time and energy to help underprivileged children in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa. At the age of nine, he ran away from home and became a street-child in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa. At the age of 14, he started his first school for street children, under a large oak tree. When he himself attended school, he threw himself in front of the emperor's car and demanded the land on which to build a school for poor children. Eventually he opened two large schools for over 4,000 students. Now for almost 45 years he has devoted all of his time and energy to fighting for the rights of the poorest children. Tens of thousands of poor children have received their education in schools. Corporal punishment has always been forbidden in Asfaw's schools. Asfaw's struggle to give poor children a possibility to live a better life has been long and difficult. He himself has been jailed several times. The two other prize-winners are Barefoot College & Children's Parliament in India and the Children's Peace Movement in Colombia. Queen Silvia, who is an Honourary Adult Friend of the World's Children's Prize, presented this year's prize at Gripsholms Castle in Mariefred on April 18. The amount of the prize this year is US$ 50,000. This money is to be spent in the activity conducted by the prize-winner for the rights of the Child. The first World's Children's Prize, given out in 2000, was awarded posthumously to the murdered former debt-slave, Iqbal Masih in Pakistan. The prize has been mentioned in thousands of published notices all over the world and has by media often been called "The Children's Nobel Prize". It is a unique global prize for the most important thing the world's children have: the rights of the child. The World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child is decided by a jury consisting of 15 children who were previously street children child soldiers, debt slaves, refugees, children subjected to other violations of their rights and/or are fighting for children's rights. They are all - through their own experiences and lives - experts on the rights of the child. Every day new schools throughout the world become Global Friends to the Children's Prize. This gives students under 18 the right to vote in the world-wide voting, but also the possibility to meet global friends in the prize magazine and on the internet. In India, a Hindi version of the prize magazine is now produced. In Uganda the prize video is shown on TV. In Guatemala, Indian children who were forced to live hidden in the jungle from bombs and soldiers for many years, read the Spanish version of the prize magazine, among other things, about Anne Frank, the murdered Iqbal from Pakistan, the rights of the child and about their own Maria who sits on the prize jury. During two months - February and March - every year, the students in Global-Friend schools vote on who or which of the nominated finalists to the World's Children's Prize will win the Global Friends' Award. This year the children's jury and nearly 20,000 Global-Friend children in 15 nations have unanimously agreed to give both awards to Asfaw Yemiru. It is the Swedish organisation Children's World which has established the World's Children prize and the Global Friend's World. Ends