2014 Nobel Peace Prize

Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai, who shares this year’s Nobel Peace Prize with India’s Kailash Satyarthi, had to wait until the end of the school day before making her first public statement. “This is not the end … I want to see every child going to school and getting an education.” Kailash Satyarthi, who has been marching and working on behalf of children for three decades, echoed the sentiment: “A lot of work still remains but I will see the end of child labor in my lifetime.” One recipient is 17, one is 60. Both fight for the human rights of children. Both have regularly risked their lives for the cause. And both want the award to improve relations between their countries, starting with their decision to invite the prime ministers of India and Pakistan to attend the prize ceremony.

The New Yorker: “Both of these people deserved the award individually. The combination of the two laureates gives it a nuanced character — and a different kind of power than if it had gone to either of them alone.”

+ Malala celebrated her sixteenth birthday by giving a remarkable speech at the UN.

+ “In the paper we read she is favorite for the Nobel Peace Prize. My son is astonished. ‘How can she win?’ he asks. ‘She’s always fighting with her brother!’” Christina Lamb in The Sunday Times: My year with Malala.

• Kailash Satyarthi
• Malala Yousafzai
• Nobel Prize