Justin List Receives This Year’s Navin Narayan Award
By Hannah Lauber (Thursday, Feb 25, 2010)
During the post-conference reception, we were humbled to commemorate Navin Narayan and his contribution to health and human rights by presenting the annual Navin Narayan Student Achievement Award For Health and Human Rights Activism. This year’s recipient, Justin List, is a fourth-year medical student at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. A long-time member of PHR, Justin hopes to work to strengthen health care systems in sub-Saharan Africa.
Below are Justin’s remarks upon his acceptance of the award:
I’m honored and humbled that PHR considered me for this award and thankful for the generosity of the Narayan family for helping me get here today. I can only hope that my efforts to date and those to come honor Navin and his dedication to working for justice and reducing inequities around the world.
I grew up in a safe, quiet Chicago suburb with parents who worked hard to give my siblings and me access to good schools and opportunities. I had a sense of justice and a questioning of the world from as long as I could remember, but it was with a sort of quiet, Midwestern sensibility. I always knew whether or not I acted on it, that the world is what we make it more than the other way around; however, my involvement with advocacy and human rights really only developed 5 or 6 years ago.
