Ernest Guevarra

Advocate for Children Traumatized By Violence - standing up for human rights

After graduating from medical school in Manila, Dr. Ernest Guevarra moved to the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, a maelstrom of violence where Muslim separatists provoke government retaliation including aerial bombardment and indiscriminate arrests. He directs a play-therapy rehabilitation program for children exposed to the violence. Guevarra thinks all disease is part of a larger picture that includes social conditions, politics and economics; and that doctors must help improve those conditions.

A committed global advocate, he has helped International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War since medical school, was thrown into jail in 2001 when investigating allegations of torture among Muslim detainees in the southern Philippines, has supported the reintegration back to their families and communities of children and youth abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda and is currently working to realize the rights of children affected by armed conflict in Sri Lanka.

Standing up for the principles of the Universal Declaration
Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms that everyone has the right to "a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including medical care and necessary social services and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood" or old age.

Learn more:
>>Bio: Ernest Guevarra
>>More information about health in the Philippines

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