Argentinean lawyer and human rights activist Romina Picolotti received the Sophie Prize in Oslo 15 June from Norwegian Minister of International Development Erik Solheim. She urged the world to take action to eliminate poverty and promote sustainable development.
20/06/2006 ::
"Never underestimate an individual's ability to change the world"
- Mahatma Gandhi/ Sophie Foundation motto
"I take a moment to make an unavoidable allusion to 'Sophie's World', the philosophical novel that gave birth to the Sophie Prize. This wonderful philosophical work by Jostein Gaarder, the generous author and ideologue of this award, accompanied me during one of my most intense and fondly memorable times of my life.
In 1995, my father indulged me with a Spanish translation of 'Sophie's World', just before I left for Cambodia, where I contributed for nearly two years to the reconstruction of Cambodia's judicial system. Sophia, the main character of this novel, represents the existential worries that trouble humankind. She incessantly searches for responses to these worries. This search, which I undoubtedly share, is the reason you and I are together here today," said Picolotti at the award ceremony in Oslo.
The Sophie Prize is a USD 100 000 annual award handed out for the ninth time in 2006. It was founded by the Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder and his wife, Siri Dannevig, and goes to an individual or organisation that, in a pioneering or a particularly creative way, has pointed out alternatives to the present development and put such alternatives into practice.
"Picolotti has given the poor and disempowered people rights-based protection against exploitation and environmental destruction. And she has demonstrated how the universal human rights are expressed demands for social change," said the Sophie Foundation Chair Gunhild Ørstavik.
Picolotti founded the organisation Center for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA) in 1999, which is the world's first organisation solely dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights violated by environmental destruction.
Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs