Human Rights Award
2010 Recipients
Dennis Labayan MD and Lorna Labayan MD
Drs. Lorna and Dennis Labayen have worked their entire careers to improve
the welfare of the poor throughout the world.
Dennis is the primary intellectual articulator of the human
development approach used by Outreach International. He has worked in
participatory human development and community health programs in poor
communities for the better part of four decades. Lorna also is an authority on
participatory human and integrated community health and rural development. She
is senior consultant at Outreach International. He serves as director of field
operations for Outreach International and is in his 29th year with
the organization.
The Labayens began in development work in 1973, shortly
after they graduated with medical degrees from the University of the
Philippines. To the surprise of their families and classmates, they forsook
lucrative private practices and worked in poor rural communities with the
University of the Philippines Comprehensive Community Health Program.
Lorna’s expertise soon was recognized, and she began a
global career as adviser to international development organizations and
government authorities in health, child-focus development, and gender
development. She has consulted several international development organizations,
including Catholic Relief Services. Her expertise has helped Plan International
with program and theoretical conceptualization and development, and personnel
training across 16 nations throughout the developing world. She has helped them
shift their methodology from traditional child-sponsorship to an integrated
child-centered community development model.
Before becoming an independent consultant, Lorna was
director of the Community Health Reproductive Health and Nutrition program at
the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction from 1992 to 1997. In that
role she headed a team of health and development workers in participatory human
development programs. She also conducted overseas training and consultancy in
Nepal, Vietnam, India, and China.
In 1997 University of Philippines medical alumni awarded
their Community Service Award to Lorna and Dennis as two of the three medical
graduates from 1972 who continued to work in and with the same communities for
25 years.
Before coming to Outreach International, Dennis studied and
worked at the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction, a world-renowned
research institute and development organization based in Cavite, Philippines,
where he had worked as a rural community health specialist before becoming the
head of its Integrated Research Operations Team.
Outreach International programs use the Participatory Human
Development methodology developed by Dennis and his colleague, Eduardo “Toto”
Delfin, during their time working in impoverished regions of the Philippines.
Unlike traditional community development work, the Participatory Human
Development Process puts the poor at the center of decisions about
implementation of social change. Community workers take the role of
non-directive facilitators, encouraging community organization, identification,
and solution of shared problems and consciousness-raising.
At Outreach International,
Dennis has been responsible primarily for the setting up and management of field
programs in Africa, Central and Latin America, the Caribbean, and the two
projects in North America. He is deeply involved in mentoring and providing
ongoing training for staff throughout the field program.
Since 2004 he has provided leadership and training services
for OI’s consulting relationship with Plan International, introducing the
concept and practice of authentic participation into Plan’s child-centered
community development approach in numerous nations including Dominican Republic,
Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, Paraguay,
and Brazil.
Dennis has worked with Graceland University to develop the
Outreach International/Graceland University Winter Term program. This has become
a popular program, providing students with a potentially life-changing education
experience.
Fluent in English, Filipino, and Ilocano, Dennis also is
conversant in Spanish. A longtime friend of Community of Christ, Dennis often is
a guest at reunions and mission center gatherings where he shares his passion
for ministry among the poor.
Lorna, a model of compassion and generosity, is a woman of
deep intellectual curiosity and a reformer of institutions on the critical issue
of gender equality among the poor. Partnered with a remarkably gifted and
passionate husband, she has forged her own independent career as a recognized
expert in participatory human and integrated rural development with a special
focus on women and children.
Lorna and Dennis, in their 37th year of marriage,
are the parents of three adult daughters—Leah, Stella, and Corazon.
Colleagues and friends hold the Labayens in the highest
esteem. As one Outreach International headquarters staff member stated, “Both
Dennis and Lorna are tireless workers, filled with compassion for the poor and
committed to helping people help themselves. They have given their lives for
others. As much as we enjoy their presence at the office, we know they truly
shine when in the field. They are the light of Christ in places where the
darkness of poverty once prevailed.”
We are pleased to raise their example as inspiration for all
of us in presenting Drs. Dennis and Lorna Labayen with the 2010 Community of
Christ International Human Rights Award for Service to Humanity.
.
Roy H. Schaefer DDS, MPH
To associate the name of Roy H. Schaefer with the word “retired” is a
little like associating the term “dentistry” with “painless.” Roy is better
described as tire-less,
especially in his pursuit of justice and the common good, two of the
most-essential traits of the kingdom of God. In all of his activities—and they
are many—his singular purpose is the well-being of the individual as a
critical part of the community.
Both as a full-time minister in Community of Christ and a
lifelong minister of Christ, Roy has served with an unwavering passion for life,
learning, and humanity, especially the vulnerable—whether they are poor, hungry,
in prison, sick, or disenfranchised. In so doing, Roy has lived what often is
called the mission statement of Jesus, found in the book of Isaiah and echoed in
the Gospel of Luke: The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives…recovery of
sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free…
A trained doctor of dentistry, Roy was appointed by the
First Presidency in 1974 as the church’s first Health Ministries commissioner.
By then, he had become a leader with several others in the church in the arena
of health missions, having already coordinated more than 25 such efforts to
Haiti alone. Aided by earning a master’s degree in public health from Johns
Hopkins University, he became instrumental in the church’s ongoing and expanding
work in health missions and especially the related movement toward community
development.
With two other pioneering souls, Charles Neff and William T.
Higdon, Roy helped found Outreach, Incorporated, precursor to Outreach
International.
In 1978, he was called and ordained an apostle, and he
continued his ministry of physical and spiritual wholeness. In these roles, Roy
was drawn to those the gospel calls “the least of these.” He could see in them
the presence of the Christ, once observing that the central factor in ministry
was learning to “sense the unusual expression of the loving, caring spirit of
the living God in the
people.”
Roy was honorably released from the Council of Twelve in
1988 after offering his gifts of ministry in nearly 30 nations. It became a new
beginning for his local activist soul. Roy has served in leadership roles with
several local, area, national, and international groups that focus on community
betterment—eliminating poverty and homelessness, providing health-care needs,
and focusing on peace, justice, and human-rights issues.
He helped start chapters for Amnesty International, worked
extensively for the Missouri Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, served as
vice president of the Kansas City Interfaith Peace Alliance, and as a board
member for Habit for Humanity in Independence, to mention just some community
and social-justice groups with which he has served.
In 2006, when he was presented the “Spirit of Service” award
by the Independence Ministerial Association, Roy had been or currently was
involved in 40 church or community programs in the Kansas City area. Just last
year he concluded a term on the Alliance’s Executive Committee.
Roy currently serves on the City of Independence’s Human
Relations Commission, an entity charged with fostering “mutual understanding and
respect among all ethnic, racial, and religious groups” including discouragement
and prevention of discrimination for any such groups. He also volunteers with
the Eastern Jackson County affiliate of Hillcrest Transitional Housing, an
organization that helps families move from homelessness to self-sufficiency and
boasts a 95-percent success rate.
He has led a personal crusade for the homeless in his
community, single-handedly leading an effort for those living on the streets to
have the opportunity to enter the warmth of the Auditorium as paying customers
and listen to the triumphant beauty of Handel’s
Messiah.
He also has worked to reform Missouri’s payday-loan laws,
which commonly have exploited the poor. He has received numerous service awards
for his volunteer work as an advocate for community development and justice,
including Outreach International’s Distinguished Service Award.
His community involvement does not diminish his church
activity. A devoted member of Stone Church Congregation, he serves in adult
education and community outreach. In recent years, he has served on numerous
World Church committees, including the Peace and Justice Team and the Human
Rights Team.
Roy also offers his ministry to those incarcerated. Indeed,
along with Peter and Kris Judd, he has produced a soon-to-be-released resource
for Community of Christ on prison ministry.
Roy currently serves on the church’s Peace and Justice
Ministries team in congregational ministries. He has helped develop several
resources for congregations, including
Congregations and Community
Together and
Discover and Share Your Gifts. He also published a book,
Life’s Reflections.
The Schaefers—Roy and Marilyn, a registered nurse—have been
married 52 years this year. They have two grown children, David and Nan, and one
adored granddaughter.
Ever self-effacing, Roy much rather would be away from any
spotlight, working at a free community-health clinic or visiting a friend in
prison than to be here to receive an international award. But we will ask his
indulgence as we delight in presenting Roy Schaefer with the 2010 Community of
Christ International Human Rights Award for Service to Humanity.
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