Greta Thunberg Donates $1.2 Million Prize to Charity
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has won the first Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity. The 17-year-old says she plans to donate all of the $1.2 million prize money to environmental charities.
On Twitter, Thunberg wrote that she will donate over $100,000 to the SOS Amazonia campaign to help people in the Amazon rainforest affected by the coronavirus. She also plans to donate over $100,000 to the Stop Ecocide Foundation, a charity that is trying to make destroying the environment a crime.
Thunberg said that she will donate the rest of the money to other charities that are trying to stop climate change and help people affected by it.
The Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity comes from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, an organization in Portugal that aims to improve people's lives through art, charity, science and education.
Each year, the award will go to a different person, group or organization that is fighting climate change in some way.
Thunberg was 15 years old when she first began protesting against climate change, skipping school to sit outside the Swedish parliament on Fridays. She started the Fridays for Future protests, which have now seen a total of 14 million people around the world protesting against climate change.
This is not Thunberg's first award for her work as an activist. In April, she won $100,000 from the Human Act Foundation, a Danish organization that is working to end poverty. She donated the money to UNICEF to help children affected by the coronavirus, and Human Act donated a further $100,000.
Time magazine named Thunberg "Person of the Year" in 2019, and she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in both 2019 and 2020.
