Kailash Satyarthi, Malala Yousafzai Speak at Nobel Awards Function in Norway: Highlights

Oslo, Norway: On Wednesday, India's Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai addressed the gathering at the Nobel Peace Prize function in Oslo, Norway.

Here are the highlights of Kailash Satyarthi's speech:

• I am deeply honoured to recite a mantra from the ancient texts.
• This mantra carries a prayer, an aspiration and a resolve that has the potential to liberate humanity from all man-made crises.
• I bow to my parents, my motherland and to mother earth.
• With a warm heart I recall how thousands of times, I have been liberated, each time I have freed a child from slavery. In the first smile of freedom on their beautiful faces, I see the Gods smiling.
  
• I give the biggest credit of this honour to my movement's Kaalu Kumar, Dhoom Das and Adarsh Kishore from India and Iqbal Masih from Pakistan who made the supreme sacrifice for protecting the freedom and dignity of children.
  
• I humbly accept this award on behalf of all such martyrs, my fellow activists across the world and my countrymen.
• I am here to share the dreams and voices of our children.
• I represent the sound of silence and the cry of innocence.
• There is no greater violence than to deny the dreams of children.
• The single aim of my life is that every child is: free to be a child, free to grow and develop, free to eat, sleep, see daylight, free to laugh and cry, free to play, free to learn, free to go to school, and above all, free to dream.
• Shackles of slavery not stronger than the quest for freedom.
• Undoubtedly, progress has been made in the last couple of decades. The number of out of school children has been halved. Child mortality and malnutrition has been reduced, and millions of child deaths have been prevented.
• There is one serious disconnect in this world. It is the lack of compassion. Let us inculcate and transform the individuals' compassion into a global movement. Let us globalise compassion.
• Governments must make child-friendly policies. Businesses must be more innovative. Inter governmental agencies must work together to exercise action.
• We must stand with our children. We must be bold and ambitious.
• 50 years ago, on the first day of my school, I met a cobbler boy sitting at the school gate, polishing shoes. I asked my teachers these questions: "Why is he working outside? My teachers had no answer.
• One day, I gathered the courage to ask the boys' father. He said: "Sir, I have never thought about it. We are just born to work." This made me angry. It still makes me angry. I challenged it then, and I am challenging it today.
• I see thousands of Mahatma Gandhis and Martin Luther Kings. I call for democratisation of knowledge. I call for a march from slavery to liberty.
• Let us march from darkness to light. Let us march.
  

Highlights from Malala Yousafzai's speech:

• I thank my father for not clipping my wings and for letting me fly. Thank you to my mother for inspiring me to be patient and to always speak the truth.
• I am very proud to be the first Pashtun, the first Pakistani, and the first young person to receive this award.
• I am pretty certain that I am also the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fights with her younger brothers. I want there to be peace everywhere, but my brothers and I are still working on that. 
• This award is for the forgotten children who want education.
• It is for those voiceless children who want change.
• Education is one of the blessings of life-and one of its necessities. That has been my experience during the 17 years life.
• We had a thirst for education because our future was right there in that classroom. We would sit and read and learn together.
• Swat was a place of beauty which suddenly changed into a place of terrorism. Our beautiful dreams turned into nightmare.
• Education went from being a right to being a crime.
• But when my world suddenly changed, my priorities changed too.
• Education went from being a right to being a crime. But when my world suddenly changed, my priorities changed too.
• I had two options, either to remain silent or speak up. I chose the second one. I decided to speak up.
• The terrorists tried to stop us and attacked me and my friends on 9th October 2012, but their bullets could not win.
• We survived and since then our voices have been louder.
• I am Shazia. I am Amina. I am one of those 66 million girls who are out of school.
• There are still girls who have no freedom to go to school in the north of Nigeria. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, we see innocent people being killed in suicide attacks and bomb blasts.
• Many children in India and Pakistan are deprived of their right to education because of social taboos, or they have been forced into child labour and girls into child marriages.
• The first place this funding of the Nobel Prize will go is where my heart is, to build schools in Pakistan-especially in my home of Swat and Shangla.
• We have seen some progress in the last couple of years. However, progress has not reached everyone.
• Some would say it is impossible and practical. But it is time the world think bigger.
• Why is it that countries which are considered strong are weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books so hard? Why is it that making tanks is so easy but building schools so hard?
• We are living in the modern age. We believe nothing is impossible. We reached the moon 45 years ago. In this century, we must be able to give every child quality education.
• We must work, not wait. We all need to contribute. Me, you, we. It is our duty. Let us become the first generation to decide to be the last to see empty classrooms, lost potential.
• Let this be the last time that a  girl, or child is forced into early child marriage. Let this be the last time a child loses life in a war. Let this be the last time a child is seen out of school.
• Let us begin this ending right now.