Mandela and wife share children's rights prize

Former South African President Nelson Mandela, his wife and a group of Kenyan Aids activists shared the 2005 World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child today.

The £50,000 (€73,300) prize is split in two parts, the Global Friends Award and the World’s Children’s Prize.

Mandela and his wife, Graca Machel, received the Global Friends Award for their efforts to improve the freedom and equal rights of all South African children, and the right for every girl to attend school, organisers said in Stockholm.

The second award was given to the Mothers of St Rita in Kenya, a group of 20 women who for seven years have been helping children orphaned by Aids.

The winner of the Global Friends Award was decided in a vote by nearly 2.4 million children in schools around the world, while the World’s Children’s Prize was awarded by a jury of children from 15 countries, organisers said.

“You children have my support, whether I’m alive or in the grave,” Mandela said in a statement. “Give my regards to the children in South Africa or elsewhere.”

The World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child was set up in 1999 by the Swedish Children’s World Association to recognise those who defend the rights of youngsters. It was first awarded in 2000.

Sweden’s Princess Christina will host an awards ceremony at Gripsholm Castle outside Stockholm on Friday. Mandela will be represented by his daughter, Zindzi, at the ceremony.