GCE- Internationaal | The Global Campaign for Education is delighted and proud to announce that one of its co-founders and current board members, Kailash Satyarthi, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his ceaseless work for children’s rights. Kailash, who has devoted his life to ending child labour, wins the prize alongside girls’ education champion Malala Yousafzai, the youngest ever winner of a Nobel Prize.
Kailash is also the founder of the Global March Against Child Labour and Bachpan Bachao Andolan, two organisations which campaign for an end to child labour and human trafficking, and for the realisation of the right to education for children. He has personally headed missions to rescue child labourers, securing the release of over 80,000 children in bonded labour, as well as leading various protests and demonstrations which focus on the exploitation of children for financial gain. On behalf of the Global Campaign for Education, Kailash has also served on the Board of Directors for the Global Partnership for Education and the UNESCO High Level Group for Education For All.
Kailash, along with leaders of the international federation of teachers’ unions Education International, and international NGOs ActionAid and Oxfam, founded the Global Campaign for Education in 1999 in the run up to the 2000 World Education Forum and the development of the Millennium Development Goals. Since then, GCE has gone on to spearhead the world’s biggest civil society education movement, with over a hundred international, regional and national members, the latter of which are coalitions bringing together thousands of organisations campaigning for the right to education.
Kailash Satyarthi served as GCE President from its inception to 2011, heading up this vast movement which has seen millions of members of the public engaged in global campaigns for youth and adult literacy, girls’ education, access to quality education and the increase of trained teachers among others during its flagship campaign, Global Action Week. In 2010, Kailash led GCE during its successful 1GOAL: Education for All campaign, which saw 19 million people worldwide lobby for increased financing and access to quality education, culminating in the announcement of AUS$ 5 billion by the Australian Government at the 1GOAL closing event during the 2010 UN General Assembly, hosted by Kailash on behalf of GCE.