Chiapas Training Center Given Sasakawa Prize at World Health Assembly

Geneva, May 19, 2005 (PAHO)—The Center for Training and Education in Ecology and Health for Peasants in Chiapas, Mexico, today at the World Health Assembly received the Sasakawa Health Prize for 2005 for its outstanding work in health development. The award consists of US$ 40,000.

The center's director, Marcos Arana, said he recognized the work of hundreds of health woekrs who contributed to the center's labor on behalf of indigenous peoples in Chiapas.

The Sasakawa prize is given each year for outstanding and innovative health work.

The Center was created in 1985 to support the group of doctors and researchers during an emergency resulting from the eruption of the Chichonal volcano, and has continued working with refugees and people displaced by armed conflict.

The health assembly, in which officials from 192 countries participate, continues through next week in Geneva.