About the Right Livelihood Award
The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980 to honour and support those "offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today".
It has become widely known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize' and there are now 141 Laureates from 59 countries.
Presented annually in Stockholm at a ceremony in the Swedish Parliament, the Right Livelihood Award is usually shared by four Recipients, but not all Laureates receive a cash award. Often an Honorary Award is given to a person or group whose work the Jury wishes to recognise but who is not primarily in need of monetary support. The prize money in 2010 was 200,000 €. The prize money is for ongoing successful work, never for personal use.
The Prize's impact
The Right Livelihood Award is widely recognized as the world's premier award for personal courage and social transformation. Besides the financial support, it enables its Recipients to reach out to an international audience that otherwise might not have heard of them. Often, the Award also gives crucial protection against repression. For the Laureates, the Award has opened many doors, including prison doors.
In 2008, Monika Hauser received the Right Livelihood Award for her work with women who have experienced sexualised violence. In the six months that followed the Award's announcement, Hauser's organisation medica mondiale received twice as much in donations than in the same time period the year before. The public attention was also enormous.
Monika Hauser said: "The Prize certainly played a major role in this jump in donations. So the Award's value is not only about the prize money itself, it goes far beyond that."
From Peace to Spirituality and Agriculture
Unlike the Nobel Prizes (for Physics, Physiology/Medicine, Chemistry, Literature, and Peace), the Right Livelihood Award has no categories. It recognises that, in striving to meet the human challenges of today's world, the most inspiring and remarkable work often defies any standard classification. For example, people who start out with an environmental goal frequently find themselves drawn into issues of health, human rights and/or social justice. Their work becomes a holistic response to community needs, so that sectoral categories lose their meaning.
An interview with the founder of the Right Livelihood Award, Jakob von Uexkull, can be watched here.
