Kailash Satyarthi Will Be First Indian to be Awarded Harvard “Humanitarian of the Year” Award

The first Indian to receive the prestigious “Humanitarian of the Year” award by Harvard Foundation this year is none other than Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi.

Indian Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi has been selected for the “Humanitarian of the Year” award by the Harvard Foundation.

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his decades long campaign for protecting child rights, Satyarthi will be the first Indian to be awarded this title.

Photo Credit: Pierre Albouy/Flickr

He will receive the award today, Oct. 16, 2015, at a ceremony at the Harvard University campus in Cambridge.

According to the university website, “Each year, the Harvard Foundation of Harvard University presents the Humanitarian Award to an individual whose works and deeds have served to improve the quality of our lives and have inspired us to greater heights.”

The award was instituted in 1984 and past honorees include Martin Luther King Sr., United Nation’s Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, his predecessor Kofi Annan, Lionel Richie, and Sharon Stone, among many others.

Kailash Satyarthi, who started the Bachpan Bachao Andolan as a Delhi based non-profit, has been working for the rights of children in India since 1980, and his organization has rescued over 80,000 children from 144 countries, from forced labour, trafficking and slavery.

“We believe that your notable contributions to Indian child rights deserve special recognition,” wrote S. Allen Counter Jr., director of the Harvard Foundation, in a letter to Mr. Satyarthi inviting him to the ceremony held in his honour.

This is how he was welcomed to Boston:

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