Kenyan and Ghanian activists among 2023 ‘Alternative Nobel’ prize laureates

Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award, known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”, has in 2023 honored work of two women activists from Africa to provide safer abortion access in the continent and in the area of environmental protection in Kenya, as well as a humanitarian group that rescues migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.
The 2023 laureates “stand up to save lives, preserve nature and safeguard the dignity and livelihoods of communities around the world”, the awards foundation said on Thursday (28 September), adding that they “fight for people’s right to health, safety, a clean environment and democracy”. Two women — from Kenya and Ghana — and two organizations were presented with this year’s Right Livelihood Award on Thursday. Phyllis Omido won the award for highlighting unsafe industrial practices in Kenya, whilst Eunice Brookman-Amissah was honored for fighting social taboos around abortion in African nations. Another two awards also went to Mother Nature Cambodia for its efforts at preserving the environment in the face of an authoritarian regime and corrupt businesses and an European organization SOS MEDITERRANEE that was honored for its life-saving work amid a deepening humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean Sea.
This year, the laureates were selected from 170 nominees who came from 68 countries, the foundation said and added that the winners will be recognized at an awards presentation in Stockholm on 29 November. To date, 190 laureates from 74 countries have received the award. Previous laureates include Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, Ukrainian human rights defender Oleksandra Matviichuk and Congolese surgeon Denis Mukwege, the latter two of which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 and 2018, respectively. The Right Livelihood Prize was launched in 1980 by the German-Swedish Jakob von Uexhull after the Nobel Foundation turned down his proposal to create two new prizes for the environment and development.