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The Barbara Chester Award |
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to Clinicians and Healing Practitioners working with Survivors of Torture
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In
honor of the life and work of Dr. Barbara Chester, the Hopi Foundation has
established an award for outstanding clinicians/practitioners who treat victims
of torture, their families and communities. In issuing this award, we hope
to honor the worthy persons who undertake the difficult and often dangerous
work of providing healing services in circumstances of torture. We hope also
to call attention to such abuses directed against specific regions and communities,
and draw worldwide support for prevention of torture and associated trauma.
The
annual award includes a cash prize of approximately U.S. $10,000 and a silver
sculpture, 17 cm. in height, beautifully handcrafted by noted Hopi artisan
Floyd Lomakuyvaya, featuring Hopi symbolism for healing and Qa Tutsawinvu
freedom from fear of intimidation from any source. There are no restrictions
on how the monetary award can be used. In the event of a tie, the finalists
will share the award equally.
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Eligibility and Selection Criteria |
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Clinicians
and healing practitioners who treat torture survivors are eligible for the
Barbara Chester Award from the fields of psychology, social work, physical
therapy, counseling, psychiatry, western medicine, and indigenous healing
traditions. For purposes of the Award, "torture" shall be defined as the
deliberate, systematic or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering
by one or more persons acting in official capacities, such as in government,
or occurring as a result of organized violence.
Mandatory (Basic) Requirements:
- Candidates
must be clinicians or healing practitioners who provide treatment or healing
services directly to survivors of political torture and their communities.
- Candidates
must work primarily with torture survivors, although they might in addition
provide services to other clients, such as refugees who have suffered dislocation
and subsequent trauma.
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Desirable Qualities:
Candidates should exemplify some (not necessarily all) of the following
qualities, abilities, and accomplishments undertaken and performed in a
respectful and nonviolent manner. |
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- Courage
- Compassion
- Scholarly Contributions
- Client Empowerment
- Conceptual and Intellectual Brilliance
- Tenacity and Perseverance
- Respect for cultural diversity
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- Facilitation of community organization and teamwork
- Strong, effective client advocacy
- Promotion of self-determination for indigenous people
- Superb therapeutic/healing skills
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Consideration will also be given to candidates whose personal safety may be in jeopardy from working in high-risk situations. |
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Nominations |
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The deadline for the 2006 Barbara Chester Awards nomination was April 30, 2006. Please watch for the 2008 deadline date. Nomination forms may be used online or downloaded. Nomination forms are posted here.
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Award Event & Ceremonial |
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The 2006 Barbara Chester Award was presented to Dr. Alp Ayan of Izmir, Turkey in Tucson, Arizona. The $10,000 cash award and beautifully hand crafted Hopi Indian silver eagle feather sculpture was presented at a banquet hosted by the Hopi Foundation on Saturday evening.
The agenda for the 2006 Award Event & Ceremonial was exciting. The event was held in collaboration with Amnesty International's Western Regional Conference and Amnesty's conference theme is on Human Rights Have No Borders. A number of conference sessions were conducted on Terror and Torture. |
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Barbara Chester Award Program Highlights |
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Presentation of the Silver Eagle Feather Sculpture
by Floyd Lomakuyvaya, and U.S. $10,000 by Hopi Foundation
Executive Director Barbara Poley to the
2006 Barbara Chester Award Recipient Alp Ayan, MD from Izmir, Turkey.
Dr. Ayan is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist
with the Human Rights Foundation
of Turkey (HRFT) Treatment and Rehabilitation
Center, Izmir Branch. |
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Keynote Addresses & Presentations |
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Bishop Desmund Tutu, South Africa
"Torture in the 21st Century" (videofeed)
Inge Genefke, Ambassador, Founder, RCT, IRCT,
Copenhagen, Denmark
Hιlθne Jaffι, Medical Director, Association for the Victims
of Repression in Exile (AVRE), Paris, France
Shari Eppel, Recipient of the 1999 Barbara Chester Award, AMANI TRUST, Bulawayo, Zimbabe
Allen Keller, Recipient of the 2003 Barbara Chester Award, Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture,
New York, NY
Loris Taylor, Associate Director, Hopi Foundation "A Hopi Perspective of Torture"
Original Poetry Readings by Refugee Leadership Youth Owl & Panther Group: "Writing Out of the Darkness"
Please download this PDF for the complete program and additional information.
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Selection Process |
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The Barbara Chester Award recipient will be determined by vote of the
Selection Committee. Selection Committee members have demonstrated substantial
lifetime commitment to the field of human rights, and many have worked
specifically with survivors of political torture: Bernard Albaugh,
M.S.W., M.P.H. Formerly Director, Center for Native American Development, Weatherford,
Oklahoma and Historic Preservation Officer, Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho
Tribes. Kit Fox Clan.
Donna
Anderson, Director, Human Resources, Grand Portage Reservation, Minnesota.
Great Lakes Band of Chippewa.
Martha Blue,
J.D. Formerly General Counsel to the Havasupai Tribe, former legal counsel
to members of the Hualapai, Navajo, and Hopi tribes, Flagstaff, Arizona.
Jorge Cabrera, MSW, ACSW, Field Office Director, Casey Family Programs, and Board of Directors, Survivors of Torture International, San Diego, California
Mildred Chester, Mother of Barbara Chester, Margate, Florida. • Shari Eppel, Formerly Director of Amani Trust, currently Human Rights Advisor to Archbishop Pius Ncube, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
• Inge Genefke, M.D., DMSc hc., mult, IRCT Ambassador, Founder of RCT and IRCT, Copenhagen, Denmark; Founder of WPA Section on Psychological Consequences of Torture and Persecution. •
Jody Glittenberg,
Ph.D., RN, Research Professor Emerita of Anthropology, Nursing and Psychiatry,
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ; Research Professor, Director of Research and Scholarship, Violence Intervention and Prevention Center, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Irving I. Gottesman, Ph.D., Hon.FRCPsych, Bernstein Professor in Adult Psychiatry, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hιlθne
Jaffι,
M.D. Medical Director, Association for Victims of Repression
in Exile (AVRE), Paris, France. Advisor on Torture to
WHO.
Formerly President and Council Member, IRCT.
James M. Jaranson,
MD, MA, MPH IRCT Executive Committee, Copenhagen, Denmark;
Faculty, Department of Psychiatry, Medical School, and Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota. Formerly Medical Director, Center For Victims of Torture,
Minneapolis
Allen S. Keller, MD, Director, Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture, Associate Professor of Medicine, NYU School of Medicine, New York, New York Barbara Knudson,
Ph.D. Professor Emerita, Institute of International Studies and Women's Studies;
Director, Women in International Development, Research and Information Center,
University of Minnesota.
Meredith Larson,
MPH, Amnesty International, USA, Washington, D.C.
Aryeh Levenson, MD, Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, Sitka, Alaska.
Rita Maran, PH.D,. Lecturer
on Human Rights, University of California at Berkeley
Board Member, Center for Justice and Accountability.
Marianna
Neil, MA,
Formerly
Director of Social Services, Task Force on Central America and
Family Outreach, Center for the Prevention and Resolution of
Violence, Tucson, Arizona.
Craig
M. Oettinger, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Houston;
Clear Lake, Texas.
Barbara Poley,
MA Executive Director, The Hopi Foundation, Kykotsmovi,
Arizona. Bear Clan, Hopi/Laguna.
Julie Shaw,
Founder and Executive Director, Urgent Action Fund Supporting women human rights defenders working in high risk environments; Boulder, Colorado.
Loris
Taylor,
MEd Executive Director, Native Public Media, Flagstaff, Arizona; Masauu Clan,
Hopi.
Sima Wali,
MA President, Refugee Women in Development, Washington D.C. Recipient of
Amnesty International's Third Annual Ginetta Sagan Fund Award
Lucy E. Wilson, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, Center for the Prevention and Resolution of Violence, Tucson, Arizona.
Coordinator: Robert
W. Robin,
Ph.D., Co-Founder, Hopi Foundation. Interim Director, Center for the Prevention and Resolution of Violence, Tucson, Arizona. |
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The Hopi Foundation |
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Hopi is generally considered to be the oldest continuously occupied
settlement on the North American continent, and the Hopi among the most traditional
of Native American societies. The values of the Hopi people include millennia-old
practices concerned with respecting the rights of other people, self-determination,
and tuuwaqalmoq katsitumala
active stewardship over the living Earth or all of life. By integrating
all aspects of life into a balanced and harmonious way of being, Hopi philosophy
holds that the well being of individuals, the local community, and the world
as a whole is served. Established in 1985, governed and staffed by members of the Hopi
Tribe, the Hopi Foundation has implemented projects that give voice to and
demonstrate Hopi values in vital and practical ways. To date, the Foundation
has successfully implemented and managed a solar electric enterprise, human
rights projects in collaboration with other indigenous people, retrieval
of sacred objects, active preservation of the Hopi language, scholarship
and writing projects for youth, and restoration of ancient ceremonial clan
houses.
Following the Hopi tradition as a people of peace, in
1992 the Foundation implemented the Center for the Prevention and Resolution
of Violence founded and directed by Dr. Barbara Chester to assist survivors
of torture, war, dislocation and other forms of organized violence. After
her death, the Foundation established the Barbara Chester Award in her honor
to recognize and assist others working in this difficult field.
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The Endowment Fund |
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Administered by the Hopi Foundation, the Barbara Chester Endowment
Fund has been created through private donations and matching funds from the
Arizona Community Foundation. The annual cash prize is derived from interest
earned on the endowment principal, and thus may vary slightly from year to
year. |
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Dr. Barbara Chester |
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Mercy Has a Human Heart
the title of a book she was working on at the time of her death in 1997
concisely describes the life and work of Dr. Barbara Chester. Barbara lived
her 47 years on the frontiers of human courage and compassion. After completing
her doctorate in psychology and behavioral genetics from the University of
Minnesota, she developed and directed the state's first program for victims
of sexual assault. In 1986, as Executive and Clinical Director, Barbara was
instrumental in developing The Center For Victims of Torture in Minneapolis,
the first such program in the United States. There, until 1991, she treated
survivors of torture from over 40 countries, including Cambodia, Somalia,
Ethiopia, Iran, Afghanistan, South Africa, Guatemala, El Salvador and Vietnam.
As Clinical Director for the Hopi Foundation, from 1992 until her
death, Barbara founded and directed the Center for the Prevention and Resolution
of Violence in Tucson, Arizona. There she treated refugees crossing the Mexican-American
border including indigenes from Central and South America, and Chiapas,
Mexico as well as torture survivors from Bosnia, Vietnam and Moldavia,
among others.
Besides these milestone accomplishments, Barbara
found time for teaching, community corrections projects, extensive work with
Native American peoples, travel to experience and appreciate the diversity
of human cultures around the world, flamenco dancing, and innumerable kindnesses.
Dr. Inge Genefke, then Secretary-General of the International Rehabilitation
Council for Torture Victims in Copenhagen, said in a tribute, "I don't think
I ever met a person with such a fine understanding of the sufferings of others
as Barbara. Her intuition and brilliant intellect were combined so harmoniously
that we could all benefit."
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