India's Nobel Peace prize winner Mother Teresa will be honoured on a US postage stamp on her birth centenary, the US Postal Service said today.
The postage stamp honouring Mother Teresa is scheduled to go on sale on August 26, 2010 on the occasion of her 100th birthday.
"Mother Teresa, the Catholic nun who devoted her life to the sick and poor of India, was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. A stamp in her honour will go on sale on her birthday Aug 26," the postal service said in a statement.
Every year, the US Postal Service releases a series of commemorative stamps, honoring people, places and institutions.
These stamps remain on sale for a limited period and are widely collected, it said.
The Albanian Catholic nun, who devoted her life to the downtrodden, was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
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Other personalities to be honoured on US postage stamps in 2010 include Katharine Hepburn, winner of four Oscars, singing Cowboy and later baseball executive Gene Autry, artist Winslow Homer, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, and the Year of the Tiger, which will be released on January 14.
As of February 2009, the honour has only been bestowed on five others. Winston Churchill received it in 1963, Raoul Wallenberg in 1981, William Penn and Hannah Callowhill Penn in 1984, and the Marquis de Lafayette in 2002.
With the exception of Hannah Callowhill Penn, each of these figures has also appeared on a US postage stamp: the Marquis de Lafayette four times (1952, 1957, 1976, and 1977), William Penn in 1932, Churchill in 1965, and Wallenberg in 1997.
"Her humility and compassion, as well as her respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind, inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to work on behalf of the world’s poorest populations," it said.
Every year, the US Postal Service releases a series of commemorative stamps, honoring people, places and institutions. These stamps remain on sale for a limited period and are widely collected, it said.
Other personalities to be honored on US postage stamps in 2010 include Katharine Hepburn, winner of four Oscars; singing Cowboy and later baseball executive Gene Autry, artist Winslow Homer, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, and the Year of the Tiger; which will be released on January 14.
The US Postal Service said When Mother Teresa accepted the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize—one of her numerous honors and distinctions—she did so "in the name of the poor, the hungry, the sick and the lonely," and convinced the organisers to donate to the needy the money normally used to fund the awards banquet.
Well respected worldwide, Teresa successfully urged many of the world's business and political leaders to give their time and resources to help those in need.
President Ronald Reagan presented Mother Teresa with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985, the same year she began work on behalf of AIDS sufferers in the US and other countries, it said.
In 1997, Congress awarded Mother Teresa the Congressional Gold Medal for her "outstanding and enduring contributions through humanitarian and charitable activities."
Mother Teresa died in Calcutta on September 5, 1997, and is buried there. She had been a citizen of India since 1948.
Mother Teresa, an ethnic Albanian, was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910, in Skopje in what is now the Republic of Macedonia.
Drawn to the religious life as a young girl, she left her home at the age of 18 to serve as a Roman Catholic missionary in India.
The US Postal Service said, following a divine inspiration and deeply moved by the poverty and suffering she saw in the streets of Calcutta, Mother Teresa left her teaching post at the convent in 1948 to devote herself completely to the city’s indigent residents.