Malala leads campaign, urges prominent Pakistanis to nominate him
PESHAWAR: Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai has said she nominated well-known social worker Abdul Sattar Edhi for the Nobel Peace Prize 2016 as he was the most deserving person for the award.
Malala was talking to this correspondent from Birmingham, United Kingdom where she has been living since October 2012 after undergoing surgery for gunshot wounds in her head as a result of an attack by Taliban militants in her hometown, Mingora, in Swat.
“Abdul Sattar Edhi’s services and sacrifices are unparalleled. He has been serving the humanity irrespective of class, creed or gender,” she added.
According to Malala, it was time Edhi’s life-long humanitarian work was recognized at the global level. She noted that despite his old age Edhi continued to serve the needy through his network of services offered by the Edhi Foundation.
Malala, who is still a student, has spent time promoting Edhi’s candidature for the Nobel Peace Prize 2016. She officially nominated Edhi for the award and wrote a letter along with her father, Ziauddin Yousfzai to a number of prominent people to endorse his nomination.
Malala was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize 2014 along with India’s child rights campaigner Kailash Satyarthi. She was the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and also the first Pashtun and Pakistani to win the prestigious award.
Ziauddin Yousafzai, an educationist who ran a school in Swat at the time of the attempt on Malala’s life, had started an online petition to convince important Pakistanis to nominate Edhi for the Nobel Peace Prize 2016. He has been reminding everyone that the deadline for making the nomination is February 1.
In a recent note as part of Malala’s #Edhifornobel
Campaign, he wrote: “Please raise your voice with me for a man who has transformed the lives of millions of people and set an example to each of us about now to live our lives.”
He noted that further information relating to guidance on submitting the nomination can be found at
http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/nomination_intro/nomination_documentation/
The completed nominations should be marked for the attention of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and either emailed to postmaster@nobel.no or sent via post to the following address:
The Norwegian Nobel Committee
Henrik Ibsens gate 510255 Oslo Norway
Those qualified to nominate someone for the Nobel Peace Prize include
The members of national assemblies, governments and states; the international courts; the university rectors, professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; thedirectors of peace and research institutes; the Nobel Laureates, and the board members of organisations that have won the Nobel Peace Prize.
It may be added that the 88-year old Edhi has dedicated his life to helping others. His Edhi Foundation runs over 1,800 ambulances to give free medical aid to anyone in need. The organization also provides shelter to orphaned children, free medical care, drug rehabilitation services and disaster relief.
