Dr. Larry Brilliant
Executive Director
Google.org
Presenter of the Jonathan Mann Award for Health and Human Rights
Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to be here tonight to present the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights. Each of us in this room has no doubt many times asked the question, "What if?" What if we could get necessary medicines to all who need them? What if every community had its own sustainable healthcare system? What if we treated people with HIV/AIDS as people first? And what if we could save one more life? It is these "What ifs?" which motivate us every day, and keep us on the path to realizing the answers. This was how Jonathan Mann lived his life as a tireless advocate for the marginalized.
The Jonathan Mann Award was established to honor an individual who, like the award's namesake, asked the question "What if we make healthcare access a human right?" and then acted to turn this answer into a reality. This year's winner, Dr. Juan Manuel Canales, has been nothing short of a champion for marginalized peasant and indigenous communities in Latin America for the past 25 years. Originally from Acapulco, Dr. Canales, attended medical school in the 1970's in Mexico City, after which he practiced medicine with a collective of doctors in the rural area of Chiapas, Mexico, bringing care to this extremely impoverished region. In 1982 Dr. Canales made the decision to go to El Salvador during the height of that country's twelve year civil war, during which thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands fled or were displaced.
In this setting, Dr. Canales worked under extremely stressful and dangerous conditions. He himself suffered permanent conflict-related injuries yet, in his own words: "The spirit of struggle was what sustained us." Along with medicines and treatment, he carried a message to the villages he worked in: access to medicines was a right that the military was not permitted to interfere with under international law. Despite the harsh environment, Dr. Canales remained in El Salvador for several years after the end of the conflict to aid returning refugees and establish mental health programs for traumatized communities in conjunction with the Pan American Health Organization.
After completing his master's degree, Dr. Canales returned to Chiapas and has lived there since 1999. He is currently the head of the community health program run jointly by the NGO Doctors for Global Health and the group Daughters of Charity. Based at Hospital San Carlos, Dr. Canales trains local health promoters and helps them carry out projects in their communities, such as vaccination campaigns. His efforts often involve long, arduous treks into remote villages. He works primarily with the indigenous Mayan population, a group that has been struggling for their human rights in the face of violence and oppression by paramilitary groups operating with impunity in the region. Parts of this region have a ratio of one doctor to every twenty-five thousand people. Even so, Dr. Canales is often that one who makes a difference.
Dr. Canales has demonstrated a remarkable blend of compassion, commitment, and intelligence in his dedication to helping others to secure healthcare as a human right and to providing communities with ways to help themselves. In a 2003 article Dr. Canales was quoted as saying "We all have to do something to make changes in the world." This simple idea has led him on a journey that continues to touch many lives. In the same article, one of the rural villagers he works with said that because of Dr. Canales' work "We know we are not alone".
Tonight our award recipient will be giving his acceptance speech in Spanish. He is accompanied by Dr. Linnea Capps, who will then present his speech in English translation. I am pleased and honored to present this year's winner of the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights, Dr. Juan Manuel Canales.
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