In 1976, along with Mairead Maguire, Betty Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work against violence in her native Northern Ireland. Together, Williams and Mairead founded the Community of Peace People, an organization which is still involved in the betterment of life in Northern Ireland. But, as Williams herself has said many times, the Nobel Peace Prize is not awarded for what one has done but for what one will do. For more than twenty years she has traveled the world, working with fellow Nobel laureates in trouble spots throughout the world where the cause of peace, and especially the safety and well being of children, is at risk.

Williams moved to the United States in 1981 and has traveled extensively throughout the country. She has been honored with the Schweitzer Medallion for Courage, the People's Peace Prize of Norway, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award, the Eleanor Roosevelt Award, and the Frank Foundation Child Care International Oliver Award. In 1992, Governor Ann Richards of Texas appointed Williams to the Texas Commission for Children and Youth. In 1995 she was awarded the Rotary Club International "Paul Harris Fellowship." Williams currently serves as President of World Centers of Compassion for Children, Chair of The Institute for Asian Democracy in Washington, D.C., and Visiting Distinguished Scholar at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.

William's vision is to save the world's children by creating safe havens where they will be fed, sheltered, nurtured, and encouraged to grow to their fullest potential. This vision is becoming manifest through the work of World Centers of Compassion for Children, a non-profit organization she founded in 1997.

The focus of the WCCC's is to take the first substantial steps toward the creation of a program which will provide a strong political voice for children. In her travels over the past twenty years and more, Williams has often heard the testimonies of children who are clever, articulate and courageous in expressing their own needs and concerns. It is WCCC's intent to enable children to address the United Nations General Assembly on a regular basis, and to establish a system within the United Nations Court of Human Rights whereby children will have their own voices heard alongside those of their adult counterparts.