This years Nobel Peace Prize winners are perhaps the greatest symbols of unification we’ve seen in a while. Malala Yousufzai is the 17-year-old, Pakistani Muslim girl who was shot in the face by the Taliban because she refused to stop going to school. Malala is now a symbol for hope for children and girls everywhere. When she is not persuing her own education, she spends her time fighting for the rights of children and girls everywhere. She is the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner ever and an international phenomena, but her co-winner Kailash Satyarthi is just as worthy of the same honor and praise.

The 60-year-old, Indian Hindu child rights activist has made it his life’s work to fight for the rights of children everywhere. Kailash and his colleagues are actively working to protect the rights of some 83,000 children in 144 countries. Kailash has been fighting to protect children since 1980, and considers himself a global citizen and advocate for children’s rights.

Neither Malala nor Kailash feel as if the fight against child exploitation and deprivation is over. The two prize recipients represent a symbolic unification of two cultures that have historically been embroiled in conflict with one another. Even more so, they represent what can happen when ordinary people take a stance and speak out against a grave injustice.

Share some of the articles linked above with young adults and start a conversation about how you can work for peace in today’s world:

• What do you think about Malala and Kailash sharing the Nobel Peace Prize?
• Where do your interests lie? What are some of the areas, conflicts, or issues in today’s world that need our attention? That need peace and justice?
• Where in your community could you make a difference and help make peace? How can you give your time to help others?
• End your time together with the Prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.