Upon giving the prize, the Nobel Committee declared that “everyone has understood the language of UNICEF, and even the most reluctant person is bound to admit that in action UNICEF has proved that compassion knows no national boundaries".
The Nobel Peace Prize for 1965
"We have come together here today to pay tribute, by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, to an organization - UNICEF - because (...) it has fulfilled the condition of Nobel's will, the promotion of brotherhood among the nations", the Nobel Committee said in its Award Ceremony Speech.
Nobel Committee: "UNICEF has realized that children provide the key to the future."
"The aim of UNICEF is to spread a table, decked with all the good things that nature provides, for all the children of the world. For this reason the organization is a peace factor of great importance. UNICEF has realized that children provide the key to the future."
The organization is "forging a link of solidarity between the rich and the poor countries (...) and offers young people in all countries an alternative worth living and working for a world with: Freedom for all people, Equality between all races, Brotherhood among all men."
The Executive Director of UNICEF Henry Labouisse explained how the organization's aid comes alive in the field "when you see, for instance, a whole pilot region raising its standards simultaneously in education, nutrition, sanitation, and health, with everyone lending a hand, from the local teachers and doctors to the poorest families of the jungle villages - all this with the help of our supplies and of advice from United Nations experts."
Labouisse expressed the organization's "profound gratitude" to the Nobel Committee. "We of UNICEF accept the Nobel Prize for Peace with humility, knowing how little we are able to do and how immense are the needs."
