Each year the Hilton Humanitarian Prize is presented to the recipient organization at a luncheon or dinner ceremony. Along with a check for $1.5 million, each Hilton Prize recipient receives the Tiffany Prize sculpture (pictured right). Below is information on each of previous Hilton Prize ceremonies, along with links to information on each year's Hilton Prize recipient and keynote speaker.

In 1977, three health researchers in Seattle, Washington, used $250,000 in seed money to develop new contraceptive technologies to increase access to family planning in Southeast Asia.  Recognizing that public health needs in developing countries reached far beyond contraception, in 1980, the organization expanded its mission and adopted the name Program for Appropriate Technology in Health—or PATH as it is now known.

Today, PATH employs more than 800 staff in offices in 30 cities in 20 countries and is renowned for identifying, refining, introducing and scaling up affordable technology solutions to break long-standing cycles of poor health in developing countries.  From its modest origins has emerged a state-of-the-art laboratory and product development facility, where more than 85 cutting-edge technologies have been created or are in development. Among these are safe and affordable vaccines for malaria, meningitis, rotavirus and other diseases; vaccine vial monitors to warn of spoiling(over 2.8 billion used); single-use, autodisposable syringes (more than 2.5 billion distributed); and the Uniject pre-filled injection devices (more than 73 million used). 

PATH focuses on the technologies, behaviors and health systems needed to bring health within reach for everyone.   By collaborating with diverse public and private sector partners, PATH is strengthening health systems in low-resource countries with particular focus   on five vitally important areas: emerging and epidemic diseases; health technologies; maternal and child health, reproductive health; and vaccines and immunization.  Bringing new ideas and technologies to the toughest global health challenges, PATH is having a profound impact on the health and quality of life of millions of men, women and children throughout the world.

Click here to visit the PATH website.

Click here for press information and photos.

In 1972, Bangladesh’s economy was in ruins after a year-long war of independence. Fazle Hasan Abed, a senior corporate executive, used his own funds to launch BRAC (then known as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee).  This relief effort soon grew and became a long-term development effort to empower the poor.

Today, BRAC is considered the largest anti-poverty group in the world, reaching more than 110 million people, addressing poverty through multi-faceted solutions enacted simultaneously. BRAC focuses the majority of its activities on poor rural women, recognizing them as change agents for their families and communities.

Using micro-finance as its core component, BRAC set up small village organizations run by 30 to 40 women, provided skills training and eventually created commercial enterprises to provide inputs or markets for the goods produced by its beneficiaries. The result to date is $5 billion in loans to nearly seven million people, 8.5 million jobs created, and BRAC enterprises (including micro-finance) that produce revenues to fund 80% of BRAC’s work.

Life-saving health programs delivered by 68,000 trained volunteers have provided more than 90 million people with basic health services and have significantly reduced Bangladesh’s maternal and infant mortality rates.

BRAC’s 52,000 primary and pre-primary schools have graduated more than six million children who then transitioned into government secondary schools.
Forging a new South-to-South development model, BRAC has expanded beyond Bangladesh into other Asian and African countries, beginning in Afghanistan in 2002 and Sri Lanka in 2004 following the devastating tsunami. It also has operations in Liberia, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Southern Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.   BRAC is today blazing a trail for development organizations around the world.

Click here to visit the BRAC website.

Click here for press information and photos.

When Molly Melching arrived in Senegal in 1974, she found there was no basic education program in national languages, leaving 80% of the country’s population functionally illiterate.  Using traditional African stories, poems, songs and theatre, Melching devised a non-formal literacy program for women, with men and adolescents added later.

In 1991, Tostan (means “breakthrough” in Wolof) was established, following years of testing and adapting teaching modules with thousands of villagers from different cultures.   Holistic in its approach, the 30-month Community Empowerment Program focuses on priorities of daily life, while teaching reading, math, health, hygiene, problem solving and management skills. 

A real breakthrough occurred in 1996 when human rights and democracy modules were introduced and became the foundation for all Tostan programs.   The human rights-based approach resulted in dramatic changes: ending domestic violence and exploitation of children, empowering women and honoring the right to health and education for all.  It also led to the shattering of a number of harmful cultural traditions—more than two million people in six African countries have voluntarily decided to abandon female genital cutting and child and forced marriages. 

Having worked in nine countries, in 16 languages, Tostan’s educational model has been recognized for its ability to bring about social change, empowering African communities to transform their own lives.

Click here to visit the Tostan website.

Click here for press information and photos.

Founded in 1993 by Zainab Salbi, herself a survivor of war and conflict in Iraq, Women for Women International today works with women survivors of wars and conflicts in nine countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Kosovo, Colombia, Nigeria, Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Picking up where humanitarian aid leaves off, Women for Women International has served more than 70,000 women and distributed approximately $28 million in direct aid and micro-credit loans, assisting 380,000 family members.  Headquartered in Washington, D.C., field offices are staffed almost entirely by country nationals.  Inspired to start Women for Women International after reading of rape camps in Bosnia and Croatia, Salbi created an innovative program that matches sponsors with women whose lives have been torn apart by war and conflict.  Sponsors donate $27 monthly to provide basic necessities such as food, clean water, medicine, schoolbooks or seed money for income-producing projects.  Sponsors also exchange letters with their "sisters," giving hope and encouragement that is as critical as financial support to aiding a woman to move from victim to survivor to independent citizen.  Tens of thousands of women in every state of the U.S. as well as 56 other countries serve as sponsors and exchanged 47,000 letters last year as well as contributed about 40 percent of the organization's budget. 

In 1987, when Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, and Jim Yong Kim founded Partners In Health (PIH), they had no idea they were launching the beginning of a global health movement.  They established a clinic called Zanmi Lasante (creole for “partners in health”) in an impoverished squatter settlement in Haiti—in the poorest section of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere—because they believed that all the benefits of modern medical science should be available to the poor, it was a basic human right.  They wanted to treat not just disease, but the conditions of poverty that cause disease. Clean water, housing, food, and education were as important as free medicines. Where no health infrastructure existed, one was created.  Partners In Health trained members of the community as nurses, technicians, and health outreach workers so that they could diagnose and help treat their neighbors. Challenging conventional wisdom, Paul Farmer and Jim Kim led a tireless campaign to revolutionize existing drug protocols, by proving that poor patients with complex diseases could be cured just as easily as their counterparts in developed countries. Today, PIH is a global model for treating diseases like HIV/AIDS, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, and other diseases affecting millions of people in poor countries. This success has led the World Health Organization to reverse its policies and to use PIH treatment models in more than 30 countries. Inspired by PIH, a new generation of medical professionals is embracing the mission of bringing first-world health care to the poor.  Their determination to do “whatever it takes” has led them to expand the PIH model to Peru, Russia, Mexico, Guatemala, Rwanda, and inner-city Boston.

It started with a cow.

Dan West, an Indiana farmer, was a volunteer relief worker handing out a meager cup of milk a day to orphans and other victims of the Spanish Civil War.   Moved by their plight, he decided these people should have cows so they could produce their own milk and not have to depend on temporary aid.   From that simple idea, Heifer International was born. In 1944, the first cows sent abroad were donated by West’s neighbors and were distributed throughout Europe following World War II.  More than sixty years later, Heifer has expanded its mission, just as it has expanded to 28 the types of animals it now provides—from goats, geese and guinea pigs to bees, silkworms, and water buffalo.  Its mission is to end hunger and poverty, while caring for the earth through training in environmentally sound agricultural practices.   These goals have inspired Heifer’s work in 128 countries.  A cornerstone of Heifer’s philosophy is “Passing on the Gift.”  It brings the multiplier effect that requires each recipient family to provide offspring of their animals to another poor family—and this family then does the same—on and on until an entire community is able to lift itself out of poverty.  Lasting self-reliance for families and sustainability for the environment are the end results.  From Appalachia to Zambia, millions of hungry and impoverished families have been directly affected by Heifer’s work.  But the numbers do not stop when Heifer leaves.  Through passing on the gift, it truly becomes the gift that keeps on giving. 

Torture is a sophisticated form of social and political control designed to stifle dissent through terror.  Prior to the 1970s, little was known about torture methods or the physical or psychosocial consequences for its victims.  The first medical group to begin diagnosing torture victims was established in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1974, and doctors from 34 countries soon joined.  In 1982, the first rehabilitation center for torture victims was opened in Copenhagen to research and document torture techniques and to identify methods to treat torture survivors. By 1985, this organization evolved into the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT).  Today, IRCT supports the work of doctors and health professionals in more than 200 rehabilitation centers and programs in 100 countries.  As a voice for torture victims worldwide, IRCT has called on the global community to accept its shared responsibility to assist victims of torture, bring perpetrators to justice, and eradicate all forms of state-sanctioned torture.

(credit:  Painting by Cihat Aral, In the cell II, 1991, oil on canvas, 115x146 cm)

SOS Children's Villages (a.k.a. SOS-Kinderdorf International) was founded in 1949 in response to the needs of orphans created by World War II.  Its values and principles, unique in their simplicity, have now been embraced in 132 countries and territories.  A proprietary formula:  Give each child a mother, brothers and sisters, a home and a village.  Provide schools, day care and family centers, youth facilities and medical care for the village-and, where other children are at risk-for the surrounding community.  A multiplier: 449 villages housing more than 55,000 orphaned, destitute or troubled children and youth each year.  270 kindergartens, 181 schools, 56 medical clinics, 255 day care and family centers, and 121 vocational training centers.  Six million stakeholders contributing regularly.  A long-term commitment:  To raise a generation at a time.  More than 50 years so far.  And still counting.

Click here for more information about the 2002 Prize Ceremony.
Click here for more information about SOS Children's Villages.
Click here for press information and photos of SOS Children's Villages.

The modern worldwide hospice movement began at St. Christopher's Hospice in London--the inspiration of Dame Cicely Saunders, who became a doctor to fulfill her lifetime mission to change existing medical and social attitudes about the care of the dying.  Her groundbreaking work in pain management for the dying proved pain could be prevented, not just managed, and this became a cornerstone of hospice care.  St. Christopher's model of compassionate palliative care, providing emotional, spiritual and social support, along with expert nursing and medical care, has elevated and transformed the lives of the terminally ill.  The needs of both patients and those close to them are addressed as a "unit of care."  Founded in 1967, the pioneering work of St. Christopher's has combined clinical care with scientific research, education and training, inspiring hospice initiatives in more than 95 countries.  More than 60,000 health professionals have studied at St. Christopher's, influencing standards of care for the dying throughout the world.

Dame Cicely Saunders OM, DBE, FRCP, FRCN, died peacefully on Thursday 14 July 2005 at St Christopher’s Hospice, the world-famous hospice that she founded. She was 87. She will be greatly missed by the staff and board of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, who enjoyed her warm presence when the hospice received the 2001 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize. At that time, she was honored for her extraordinary contribution to humanity—the creation of the worldwide hospice movement. We extend our deepest sympathies to her family, friends, and colleagues the world over and honor her for her legacy that improved the way we live…and the way we die.

Click here for more information about the  2001 Prize Ceremony.
Click here for more information about  St. Christopher's Hospice.
Click here for  press information and photos of St. Christopher's.

Casa Alianza is the largest private agency in the Americas serving the first casualties of poverty, war, natural disaster, political repression, family and community disintegration: Children.  Founded in 1981, Casa Alianza works untiringly for the millions of homeless children forced into life on the streets of Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.  Its regional office is in San Jose, Costa Rica.  Casa Alianza advocates before governments and judicial authorities for these most exploited, most easily demonized street children and against the abuse of the human rights of children everywhere.  It directly touches more than 10,000 children each year, providing them with the first safe place they have ever known.  Through comprehensive programs, Casa Alianza provides sanctuary, structure, medical care, vocational training, educational support and--perhaps most importantly--a memory of what it's like to be a child.

Click here for more information about the   2000 Prize Ceremony.
Click here for more information about  Casa Alianza.
Click here for   press information and photos for Casa Alianza.

African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) is the largest international non-governmental health organization based in Africa.  Its staff is 97% African.  Since its founding in 1957 as The Flying Doctors, bringing surgical care to that continent's most remote areas, AMREF has grown into a multifaceted health care organization working on the most critical health issues facing Africa:  HIV/AIDS, malaria, clean water and sanitation, surgical outreach, training of health professionals and family health.  AMREF's strategies emphasize advocacy, capacity building and research. AMREF has led efforts to rebuild health care systems decimated by war and created new ones where none existed before.  It has trained hundreds of thousands of health personnel--from doctors and nurses to medical officers and traditional birth attendants--in more than 20 countries, leading to improved health for millions of people.  AMREF never loses sight of its guiding premise: only Africans can lead Africa into the 21st century.

Click here for more information about the 1999 Prize Ceremony.
Click here for more information about AMREF.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international humanitarian aid organization that delivers emergency medical relief to victims of armed conflict, epidemics, natural and man-made disasters, and social marginalization. MSF was founded by a small group of French doctors who believed that all people have the right to medical care and that the needs of these people supersede respect for national borders.  It was the first non-governmental organization to both provide emergency medical assistance and publicly bear witness to the plight of the populations they served. Each year, more than 2,500 volunteer doctors, nurses, other medical professionals, logistical experts, water/sanitation engineers, and administrators join 15,000 locally hired staff to provide medical aid in 80 countries.

Click here for more information about the 1998 Prize Ceremony.
Click here for more information about Doctors Without Borders.

Founded in 1933, the International Rescue Committee is among the world's leading humanitarian agencies providing relief, rehabilitation, protection, resettlement service, and advocacy for refugees, displaced persons and victims of oppression and violent conflict.  Often the first on the scene and the last to leave, the IRC is widely recognized for its flexibility, innovation, leadership and courage.  It continually ranks among the top charitable organizations for efficient financial management, with 90¢ of every dollar going to refugee assistance.  In 25 countries overseas, the IRC aids refugees and displaced persons--80% of whom are women and children.  In the United States each year, its 20 regional offices resettle more than 6,000 refugees who, for fear of death or persecution, have been forced to flee their countries.

Click here for more information about the 1997 Prize Ceremony.
Click here for more information about the IRC.

Operation Smile is an international, private, not-for-profit organization providing life-altering surgery for impoverished children around the world.  With the support of volunteer doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, and with donated equipment, Operation Smile has performed free reconstructive surgery on tens of thousands of children and young adults in 24 countries and the United States, freeing them from disfiguring conditions such as cleft lips, cleft palates and burn scars--conditions that cause physical pain and social ostracism. During an international medical mission, Operation Smile can repair a cleft lip in as little as 45 minutes at a cost of approximately $750.  In addition to surgery, Operation Smile provides education and medical training, quality assurance, advocacy and sustainability programs.  Operation Smile has trained thousands of medical professionals from its partner countries, often bringing together those previously separated by political, social and religious differences. It was founded in 1982 by Dr. William P. Magee, a plastic surgeon, and his wife, Kathleen, a nurse and clinical social worker.

Click here for more information about the 1996 Prize Ceremony.
Click here for more information about Operation Smile.