The EU supports education projects for children in conflict.

ec.europa.eu/echo/EU4children

EU Children of Peace

EUROPEAN UNION: RECIPIENT OF THE 2012 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE®

On 10 December 2012, the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Prize comes with a material award, 8 million Swedish Krona, some € 930,000. With additional EU funding the total amount has been topped up to €2 million.

The Nobel Peace Prize stands for reconciliation throughout the world. The Prize money should benefi t the fi rst hope for the future, but also the fi rst victims of present and past confl icts: children. The children in the world who are, due to confl ict and wars, deprived of growing up in peace to reach their full potential.

Today, 90% of the victims of confl icts are civilians. Half of them are children. 7 million children are refugees and 12.4 million children are displaced within their own country due to confl ict.

One of the best ways to help and protect children when they suff er from violent confl ict is to give them the opportunity to learn again and get education – otherwise their future will be even more diffi cult. Of the approximately 75 million children, including 20 million girls, who are out of school worldwide, more than half live in confl ict-aff ected areas.

EU Children of PeaceWhere the Nobel Peace Prize money will go

With this in mind, the Commission invited its Humanitarian partner organisations and agencies to propose projects. As a result, the Nobel Peace Prize Money will fund four projects under the EU Children of Peace initiative. Together these projects will reach out to over 23,000 children worldwide providing access to basic education and child-friendly spaces:

• Around 4,000 Syrian refugee children in camps at the border between Iraq and Syria;

• More than 5,000 Colombian children, among them refugees in Ecuador and members of indigenous groups in Colombia;

• 11,000 Congolese children displaced in Eastern DRC and refugees in Ethiopia;

• And 3,000 Pakistani children in the confl icted-aff ected north of the country.

UNICEF will implement the project in Pakistan, Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council will work with children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia, UNHCR will deliver assistance in Colombia and Ecuador, and ACTED from France is going to work in the Domiz Refugee camp in Northern Iraq with Syrian children. All of these Partners are among the most renowned humanitarian organisations.

Our hope is to give these 23,000 children protection, learning and the chance for a future. And also that more can be done in support of the millions of children aff ected by confl ict worldwide.