US President Barack Obama has decided to donate his about $1.4 million Nobel Peace prize money to charities, report agencies.
However, no decision has been made which charities or charity would get the prize money which the President would receive from the Nobel Committee at a function later this year.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that Obama would himself travel to Oslo to receive the award.
Obama, who was himself surprised by this announcement, said the Nobel Peace award to him represents hopes of millions and millions throughout the world and is not just the achievements of one person.
It represents the life and the world that they want to live in — whether that’s a world without nuclear weapons, a world without the spread of weapons of mass destruction, a world with peace in the Middle East, a world that addresses climate change, he said.
Obama said on Friday he was “surprised” and “humbled” by being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and said he doubted he deserved to be honoured alongside luminaries who had won the award.
“I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel committee,” Obama said in his first public reaction to the award in remarks in the White House Rose Garden.
“Let me be clear. I do not view it a recognition of my own accomplishments but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.”
“To be honest, I do not feel I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honoured by this prize.”
Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on October 9 for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy andcooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.
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