Swedish teen and climate activist Greta Thunberg has been awarded a Portuguese rights award and already pledged the $1.15m prize to environmental groups, according to Fox News.
“That is more money than I can begin to imagine, but all the prize money will be donated, through my foundation, to different organizations and projects who are working to help people on the front line, affected by the climate crisis and ecological crisis,” Thunberg said in a video on Monday.
Thunberg was chosen from a field of 136 nominees selected by a panel of “internationally renowned personalities” from various fields of science, tech, politics and culture, according to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which administers the prize, Fox News reports.
I’m extremely honoured to receive the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity. We’re in a climate emergency, and my foundation will as quickly as possible donate all the prize money of 1 million Euros to support … ->
1/3 pic.twitter.com/Eti6AJXSvj— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) July 20, 2020
“The way Greta Thunberg has been able to mobilize younger generations for the cause of climate change and her tenacious struggle to alter a status quo that persists, makes her one of the most remarkable figures of our days,” said Jorge Sampaio, chairman of the prize committee.
The first €100,000 of the prize money will go to the “SOS Amazonia” campaign led by Fridays For Future Brazil to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak in Brazil and another €100,000 will go to the Stop Ecocide Foundation “to support their work to make ecocide an international crime”, Thunberg said on Twitter.
The teenage activist has already received other awards such as the Time Magazine “Person of the Year” for 2019.
“Thunberg began a global movement by skipping school: starting in August 2018, she spent her days camped out in front of the Swedish Parliament, holding a sign painted in black letters on a white background that read Skolstrejk för klimatet: ‘School Strike for Climate,’” Time wrote at the time. “In the 16 months since, she has addressed heads of state at the U.N., met with the pope, sparred with the president of the United States and inspired 4 million people to join the global climate strike on September 20, 2019, in what was the largest climate demonstration in human history.”
She was also honored by Forbes Magazine as one of the “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women of 2019” and has been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, according to the Gulbenkian Foundation. She has also received Amnesty International’s top human rights award, according to the Guardian.