Neha Gupta, a student at Pennsylvania State University, received the International Children’s Peace Prize for her work in helping orphans around the world. Gupta, the first American to win the award, was presented the prize by Archbishop Desmond Tutu at a ceremony in The Hague. In addition to the award, Gupta received a 100,000 Euro grant to continue her work.
At the age of nine, Gupta visited her grandparents in India. She saw the devastating poverty under which many children in India lived. When she got home, she sold most of her toys at a garage sale and raised $700 that she donated to charity.
Gupta continued to raise money through an organization she and her parents set up called Empower Orphans. Over the past nine years, she has raised over $1.3 million for orphans in the United States and around the world.
Gupta is a first-year student in Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College in the Eberly College of Science. She is studying a pre-med curriculum.