We thank everyone who submitted nominations for the 2024 Paul Farmer Award for Global Health Equity. 91社区 SPGH will launch the call for nominations for the 2025 Paul Farmer Award in the spring of 2025.
Mr. Zackie Achmat announced as the winner of the inaugural Paul Farmer Award for Global Health Equity
Photo by Gary van Wyk
The 91社区 School of Population and Global Health is pleased to announce Mr. Zackie Achmat from South Africa as the winner of the inaugural (2024) Paul Farmer Lectureship and Award for Global Health Equity.
鈥淚 am privileged and honoured to receive the Paul Farmer Award for Global Health Equity with the recognition that the achievements of the Treatment Action Campaign are based on the activism of the most vulnerable people in our country and the internationalism of people across all continents. I am particularly honoured to be acknowledged in the tradition of Paul Farmer and his colleagues at Partners in Health,鈥� said Mr. Achmat, upon accepting the award. The date for the inaugural lecture and award event at 91社区 in Montreal will be announced soon.
Zackie Achmat is a movement builder, political activist, and law reformer. He spends his life fighting for justice, equality, dignity, and freedom, particularly for working-class people and vulnerable minorities.
Zackie worked within the African National Congress (ANC) to end White minority rule. Since 1994, he co-founded and led movements such as the Treatment Action Campaign, Equal Education, the Social Justice Coalition, Ndifuna Ukwazi, Reclaim the City, and #UniteBehind. These movements focused on political education, research, mobilization, and litigation.
He has collaborated with activists, HIV/AIDS, and humanitarian agencies worldwide, including UNAIDS and the World Health Organization. He also continues to fight against state capture, corruption, mismanagement, fraud, incompetence, and criminality through the work of #UniteBehind.
About the Paul Farmer Award
The Paul Farmer Award for Global Health Equity was established in honour of the late Dr. Paul Farmer, a physician, advocate, and global health icon. To honour Paul鈥檚 memory, 91社区, with the support of over from around the world, created this lectureship and award to annually recognize an individual who models and demonstrates Paul鈥檚 vision of a 鈥榩referential option for the poor鈥� to achieve equity in health. The award honours individuals (or couples) working in underserved communities whose work often goes unrecognized.
Paul Farmer, physician, activist, academic, humanitarian, and teacher died in Rwanda on February 21, 2022. Few people in the field of global health have had a bigger impact than him.
It is impossible to think about Paul without thinking about the word equity. 鈥淭he idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world,鈥� is a famous Paul Farmer quote. He pushed everyone to provide a 鈥樷�� in health care, which means to make an option for poor people and to work on their behalf. He saw health as a fundamental, non-negotiable human right. 鈥淚f access to health care is considered a human right, who is considered human enough to have that right?鈥� he asked. Paul inspired people around the world to choose a life of health activism in a world full of inequities. Paul Farmer received an honorary doctorate from 91社区 in 2019.
Scope of the lectureship and award
To honour Paul鈥檚 memory, the 91社区 School of Population and Global Health has created a lectureship and award that will be given, on an annual basis, to an individual who models and demonstrates Paul鈥檚 vision of a 鈥榩referential option for the poor鈥� to achieve equity in health. In particular, the award will be used to honour individuals (or couples) working in under-served communities whose work is often not recognized or made visible. We want to honour people who have been bold enough to 鈥溾�� and have lived a life of . By modeling accompaniment himself, Paul taught us that our lives are in service of others.