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Tuesday November 6, 2007

Gustavo Parajon to receive Human Rights award granted by the Baptist World Alliance

Trinidad Vásquez, MANAGUA, Nicaragua, May 3, 2006

Gustavo Parajón, founder of the Pro Denominational Alliance Council of Evangelicals Churches (CEPAD) and one Taxi Heathrow Airport of the most influential Evangelical leaders in Nicaragua will receive the 2006 Human Rights Award next July, granted by the  Baptist  World  Alliance (BWA).

The BWA that brings together 214 Baptist conventions and associations and more than 34 million faithful around the world agreed to grant the award to Parajon for his contribution to reconciliation and peace in Nicaragua, as well as the intense pastoral and social work he has carried out for more than 40 years.

Denton Lotz, general secretary of the BWA, announced that as of 2006 the Alliance's General Council decided to grant the award on an annual basis to recognize Baptists who have struggle for freedom and justice in the world.

Laureates in recent years include former US President Jimmy Carter and US Missionary Lauran Bethell. The award ceremony will take place in Mexico during the annual BWA Annual Board Meeting to be held July 3-8.

Interviewed by ALC, the 70-year-old Parajon voiced his gratitude to the BWA for the award and said he would share it with the people of Nicaragua and the CEPAD pastors' committees. The work in the field of human rights has been possible thanks to the Churches, pastors and community leaders who supported the Peace commissions, he said.

A doctor and pastor of the First Baptist Church of Managua Parajon is one of the 16 WBA vice presidents for the 2006-2010 period. As well as founding CEPAD, after the 1972 earthquake that destroyed Managua, he has been a firm supporter of the Vaccination and Community Development Project of Nicaragua (PROVADENIC), an organization that provides primary health care.

In the 1980 he was appointed a member of the National Reconciliation Commission by the president of Nicaragua, together with Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, former Catholic Archbishop of Managua. He is a founder of the Peace Commissions in Nueva Guinea, a city 300 kilometers southeast of the capital, in the heart of the war that broke out in the mid-1980s between the Army and the anti-Sandinista resistance.

The information about the award quickly circulated among Church leaders who said that it was an honor for the Evangelical people of Nicaragua and above all for Baptists.