The winner of The Student Peace Prize will be announced today

This year it is again time for the The Student Peace Prize, which is awarded biannually. The happening will as usual take place in Trondheim in cooperation with the ISFiT festival, which has been the tradition since 1999. Tuesday October 9th is the date for the announcement of this year’s winner. The winner, who will be the eleventh winner of The Student Peace Prize, will receive the prize during the award ceremony in February 2019. There is a Student Peace Prize Committee who makes the selection of the winner, and the announcement will be made today.

Ingeborg Rikheim, head of the The Student Peace Prize, is looking forward to the reveal that will take place at Litteraturhuset in Oslo. She can tell that the process of deciding this years winner has been a long one.

– It starts with students nominating different candidates, and then there is a nominating committee who does comprehensive research of all candidates, and ends up with five to ten peace fighters to choose from. From there, the Peace Committee makes an assessment of who the winner will be. This is a committee who consists of four student representatives and four independent experts, Rikheim says.

Great effect

The prize has for years given special attention to international students and student organisations who have made an effort to put peace on the agenda. It is students from all over the world who nominate students to receive this honor. These are students who often have played central roles in non-violent processes including peace, democracy and human rights.

Students who have made sacrifices to bring attention to their cause. Despite their hard work and passion, these students do not get much attention. This is the reason The Student Peace Prize aim to make an important contribution to this subject. Its role is to spread recognition and support to the people who want to make a difference and fight for a better future.

– In my experience, this prize has a great effect for the people who win and their cause. Several of the ten previous winners receive recognition for their work. They can experience protection from authorities and solidarity from people all over the world. Spreading hope is also a big part of receiving The Student Peace Prize.

This year’s winner, like all the previous winners, will receive 50 000 NOK to continue their work. Hopefully this will help them continue to bring attention to their cause for peace, human rights and democracy.

The announcment of the winner will be streamed 19.00 at Knaus today