After 15 years as a pastel artist and convinced that Art can contribute to world peace, Cecile Houel started in 2014 the Nobel Peace Prize project to celebrate all the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates of the prestigious Nobel Foundation. She paints very personalized portraits of the famous Laureates using the Oil medium.
For more information about the Nobel Peace Price Laureates read more below.
For more information about the Nobel Peace Price Laureates read more below.
Jane Addams (1860-1935)
United State of America
1931 Nobel Prize Laureate
- Social worker, Women’s suffrage advocate, peace activist and author
- Founder of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in 1919 and Co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. (ACLU)
- Initiator of settlement houses in the United States, based on the British model, and co-founder Chicago’s Hull House in 1889
- A Pacifists, she assisted Herbert Hoover after WWI providing relief supplies to women and children of all nations
- Awarded Nobel Peace Prize for dedication to social reform, women’s rights and International peace efforts
We are learning that a standard of social ethics is not attained by traveling a sequestered byway, but by mixing on the thronged and common road where all must turn out for one another, and at least see the size of one another’s burdens. --Jane Addams. “Democracy and Social Ethics”. New York, Macmillan, 1902. Jane Addams did not deliver a Nobel Lecture
Leymah Gbowee (1972- )
Liberia
2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
- Social worker, trauma counselor, tactician, women’s rights advocate and peace activist
- Built a coalition of Christian and Muslim women to broker peace and end Liberia’s fourteen year civil war in 2003
- Cofounder of the Women in Peace Building Network which connected to a peace building network coordinated by women in the rest of West Africa
- Works through her own non-profit organization to provide education and leadership opportunities for women, girls and youth
- Awarded the Nobel Prize along with two other women “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s right to full participation in peace-building work”
We used our pains, broken bodies and scarred emotions to confront the injustices and terror of our nation. We were aware that the end of the war will only come through non–violence, as we had all seen that the use of violence was taking us and our beloved country deeper into the abyss of pains, death, and destruction. --Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Lecture
Malala Yousafzai (1997 - )
Pakistan
2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
- Diarist and blogger, advocate, speaker, exile and survivor
- Began her fight for girls’ rights to education at eleven years old when she blogged for the British Broadcasting Company about life under the Taliban, which by 2008 had destroyed more than 400 schools in Pakistan
- Forced to continue her work in England after an attempt on her life by Taliban assassins in which she was gravely injured
- Co-founder of the Malala Fund through which she “is an active proponent of education as a fundamental social and economic right.”
- Awarded the Peace Prize, along with Kailash Satyarthi “for their struggle against the suppression of children and the young people and for the right of all children to an education.”
The world can no longer accept that basic education is enough. Why do leaders accept that for children in developing countries, only basic literacy is sufficient, when their own children do homework in Algebra, Mathematics, Science and Physics? Leaders must seize this opportunity to guarantee a free, quality, primary and secondary education for every child. Some will say this is impractical, or too expensive, or too hard. Or maybe even impossible. But it is time the world thinks bigger. --Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Lecture
Nadia Murad (1993 - )
Iraq
2018 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
- Member of the ethnic and religious Yazidi minority, refugee, survivor, author, speaker and human rights advocate
- Survived the brutal 2014 attack on her village by the Islamic State (IS) during which 600 Yazidi men were killed and women and children were imprisoned, beaten and raped
- Works to help women and children who are victims of abuse and human trafficking
- Seeks Justice for the Yazidi people against the perpetrators of genocide and terror and abuse
- Awarded the Nobel Prize “ for her efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflicts”
Education plays an essential role in nurturing civilized societies that believe in tolerance and peace. Therefore, we must invest in our children because children, like a blank slate, can be taught tolerance and co-existence instead of hatred and sectarianism. Women must also be the key to solving many problems and must be involved in building lasting peace among communities. With the voice and participation of women, we can make fundamental changes in our communities.
I am proud of the Yazidis, for their strength and patience. Our community has been targeted many times and threatened in its existence, yet we continue to struggle for our right to exist. The Yazidi community embodies peace and tolerance and must be considered an example for the world. –Nadia Murad, Nobel Lecture
Rigoberta Menchu` Tum (1959 - )
Guatemala
1992 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
- Member of the Quiche branch of the Mayan culture, Exile, narrator (both written and spoken) of the struggle for Indian peasants’ right, social reformer and women and human rights advocate
- Worked to improve peasants’ rights and farm working conditions after her Mother, Father and brother were killed fighting for those rights
- Leading advocate in Guatemala and the Western Hemisphere for Indian rights and ethos-cultural reconciliation
- Fought for peace, human rights and dignity for indigenous people who “… for 500 years have been split, fragmented, as well as victims of genocide, repression and discrimination”
- Awarded the Nobel Prize in recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous people
In Guatemala, it is just as important to recognize the Identity and the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples that have been ignored and despised not only during the colonial period, but also during the Republic. It is not possible to conceive a democratic Guatemala, free and independent, without the indigenous identity shaping its character into all aspects of national existence.
It will undoubtedly be something new, a completely new experience, with features that, at the moment, we cannot describe. But it will authentically respond to history and the characteristics of the real Guatemalan nationality. The true profile that has been distorted for such a long time.
This urgency of this vital need, are the issues that urge me, at this moment, from this rostrum, to urge national opinion and the international community, to show a more active interest in Guatemala. –Rigoberta Menchu’ Tum, Nobel Lecture
Shirin Ebadi (1947 - )
2003 Peace Prize Laureate
- Iranian author, lawyer, judge, human rights advocate.
- 1979 Iranian theocratic revolt prompted her to advocate for dissidents, political prisoners and social equality.
- 2006 Co-founded Noble Women Initiative, members are Nobel Peace Prize women united for world peace.
- 2009, after constant raids and harassment, Ebadi exiles to United Kingdom.
- Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her fight for human rights of children, women, and democracy in Iran.
“Islam is a religion whose first sermon to the Prophet begins with the word “Recite!” The Koran swears by the pen and what it writes. Such a sermon and message cannot be in conflict with awareness, knowledge, wisdom, freedom of opinion and expression and cultural pluralism.
The discriminatory plight of women in Islamic states, too, whether in the sphere of civil law or in the realm of social, political and cultural justice, has its roots in the patriarchal and male-dominated culture prevailing in these societies, not in Islam. This culture does not tolerate freedom and democracy, just as it does not believe in the equal rights of men and women, and the liberation of women from male domination (fathers, husbands, brothers …), because it would threaten the historical and traditional position of the rulers and guardians of that culture.”
Shirin Ebadi. “Nobel Lecture”. NobelPrize.org. 10 Dec. 2003. Oslo City Hall, Norway.
