by A. Abdul Aziz

Islam focuses on securing peace in every sphere of human activity. It encourages all to promote education, respect and tolerance, improve social and interfaith harmony, support charitable causes and serve humanity regardless of race, creed or colour.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim community is dedicated to establish peace at all levels and to protect the basic human rights of all. In light of this it is keen to recognise efforts made by anyone to advance the cause of peace.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Prize for the Advancement of Peace is therefore awarded in recognition of an individual’s or an organisation’s contribution for the advancement of the cause of peace.

The prize was launched at the Annual Convention (Jalsa Salana) of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, United Kingdom in the year 2009, by His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the Head of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The award comprised a trophy together with a certificate and a monetary prize.

The Prize is announced annually at the United Kingdom Annual Convention and is presented the following year at the National Peace Symposium held at United Kingdom.

Some of the winners of Ahmadiyya Muslim Peace Prize are as below:

For the year 2009, Lord Eric Avubury of United Kingdom, for his continued efforts to promote human rights across the world.

For the year 2010, Abdus Sattar Edhi of Pakistan, in recognition of his outstanding work for social welfare and humanitarian relief.

For the year 2011, SOS Children’s villages, UK For its continued efforts to alleviating the suffering of orphaned and abandoned children around the world and towards fulfilling its vision of ‘a loving home for every child’.

For the year 2012, Oheneba Boache Adjei of Ghana, in recognition of his outstanding work in the promotion of peace through life-changing medical work that has provided hope and a future for thousands of people in the developing world.

For the year 20013, Magnus MacFarlane Barrow of United Kingdom in recognition of his outstanding efforts to provide food and education to hundreds of thousands of children in the developing world.

For the year 2014, Sindhutai Sapkal of India, for she has developed her entire life for orphans.

For the year 2015, Hadeel Qasim hussain Al Oqbi of Iraq,  in recognition of her outstanding efforts for helping child refugees forced to flee areas such as Iraq due to conflict.

For the year 2016, Setsuko Thurlow of Japan, for her excellent efforts to disarm nuclear weapons.

For the year 2017, Leonid Roshal of Russia for hs remarkable services to children in war torn areas of the world.

For the year 2018, Fred Mednick of United States, in recognition of his efforts to provide unfettered access to education to some of the most neglected parts of the world.

 For the year 2019, Barbara Hofmann of Switzerland, for her outstanding humanitarian efforts in Mozambique from 1989 and onwards.

For the year 2020, Adi Patricia Roche of Ireland disarmament and supporting victims of the Chemobyl disaster.

For the year 2021, Jose Andres of USA.

For the year 2022, Tadatoshi Akiba of Japan, For his passionate activism for nuclear disarmament around the world.

For the year 2023, David Spurdle of United Kingdom.

Mr. Rafeek Ahmad Hayat, President (Amir) of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community UK announced during the final session of the recently concluded Ahmadiyya Convention United Kingdom  2026 that:

The winner of the 2026 Ahmadiyya Muslim Peace Prize for the Advancement of Peace is Mr. Somphop Jankatra of Thailand.

There have been 17 winners to 2025 from 14 countries.

Somphop Jankatra grew up in extreme poverty in southern Thailand, working since childhood to survive.

When he discovered that poor families in northern Thailand were being forced into selling their young daughters into commercial sex trade to survive, he felt a profound moral obligation to intervene, using education as a shield for exploitation.

In 1989, Mr. Somphop set up the Development and Education Programme for the Daughters and Communities Centre that targets highly vulnerable children, particularly stateless and undocumented youth from the tribes living in the hills along the Thai-Myanmar border.

His organisation provides these children with safe, free boarding, school, food and vocational life skills training, which keeps them out of the reach of the trafficking syndicates.

Somphop has also pioneered the Mekong Youth Network, a peer-to-peer training network that educates rural youth on the deceptive tactics of the traffickers, empowering them to protect their own communities.

His accomplishments are more than 10,000 young children have been directly saved from the traffic into forced labour or commercial sex trade, while 400 high-risk children are housed, fed and educated at the safe shelters at any given time.

He mobilised youth-led monitoring groups across six countries and in the Mekong sub-region to co-ordinate anti-trafficking efforts, provided specialised vocational training to thousands of youth, enabling them to secure highly paying jobs.

He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for his work.

He was also a recipient of the Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan for Outstanding Humanitarian Action and has been awarded the Anti-Slavery Award by Anti-Slavery International.

We are delighted to honour his work and award him the Ahmadiyya Muslim Prize for the Advancement of Peace.

The Peace Prize will be presented to him at the 2027 UK National Peace Symposium.

Source: MTA International – London.