Asia-Pacific

Obama gives away $1.4M Nobel prize

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-03-12 06:26

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama plans to donate the $1.4 milllion from his Nobel Peace Prize to helping students, veterans' families and survivors of Haiti's earthquake, among others, drawing attention to organizations he said "do extraordinary work."

Obama is giving a total of $750,000 to six groups that help kids go to college. Fisher's House, which provides housing for families with loved ones at Veterans Administration hospitals, will receive $250,000, the White House said Thursday. And the Bush-Clinton Haiti Fund, for which two former presidents are raising money to rebuild earthquake-ravaged Haiti, will receive $200,000.

The rest of the money will go to an array of other groups.

"These organizations do extraordinary work in the United States and abroad helping students, veterans and countless others in need," Obama said in a statement. "I'm proud to support their work."

Obama was chosen for the Nobel award more for his aspirations and approach than his accomplishments thus far. The Nobel committee honored him for changing the tenor of international politics and for pursuing goals Obama says will require worldwide effort, such as nuclear disarmament and reversing global warming.

Obama himself was surprised by the award, and aides said at the time he would donate the cash prize to charity.

He plans to give $125,000 apiece to groups that help kids go to college: College Summit, a national nonprofit that works with elementary and middle school students to boost college enrollment rates; the Posse Foundation, which gives full college scholarships to public school students who might be overlooked by traditional scholarship programs; United Negro College Fund; the Hispanic Scholarship Fund; the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation; and the American Indian College Fund.

And Obama is donating $100,000 to AfriCare, which funds HIV/AIDS programs, public health programs, water resource development and agriculture in 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. He will give $100,000 to the Central Asia Institute, which promotes education for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Obama accepted his peace prize just days after announcing he was ramping up US involvement in the war in Afghanistan.