The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation will hold its annual humanitarian symposium and prize ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Wednesday, awarding a $2 million prize to a global health research organization for its work to alleviate human suffering.

The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh — known as icddr,b — was tabbed for its five decades of work to develop “innovative, low-cost health solutions that have resulted in saving millions of lives globally.”

According to the foundation, the health organization began in an effort to find treatments for cholera and other diarrheal conditions and has become “the world’s largest diarrheal hospital treating more than 200,000 patients a year, almost all of whom recover within 36 hours.”

“icddr,b has had a profound impact on health crises and breakthroughs worldwide,” Hilton Foundation President/CEO Peter Laugharn said. “As we seek solutions to bridge global divides, the world can learn a lot from icddr,b — not just about vaccines, but about scientifically researched approaches to public health problems that work.”

The research institute becomes the 22nd recipient of the Hilton Prize. Last year’s honoree was The Task Force for Global Health. The prize comes with $2 million in unrestricted funding.

The awarding of the prize will be part of a daylong conference themed “The Future of Humanitarian Action: Bridging Our Divides.”

For 21 years, the Agoura Hills-based Hilton Foundation has awarded the Hilton Humanitarian Prize to “an organization, anywhere in the world, judged to have made extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering, often operating at great risk, hardship or personal sacrifice.”

The Prize “is not only intended to recognize and advance the efforts of the recipient organization, but also to call attention to the worldwide need for humanitarian aid and to encourage others to expand their support,” according to the foundation.

An independent, international panel of jurors selects the prize winner from among hundreds of nominations from nonprofits across the globe.

The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, created in 1944 by the founder of the Hilton Hotels chain, focuses on six priority areas: providing safe water, ending chronic homelessness, preventing substance use, helping young children affected by HIV and AIDS, supporting transition-age youth in foster care, and extending its namesake’s support for the work of Catholic Sisters.

Since its inception, the foundation has awarded more than $1.5 billion in grants, distributing $109 million in the U.S. and around the world in 2016.

For more information on the Hilton Foundation and its Humanitarian Symposium and Prize Ceremony, visit www.hiltonfoundation.org.

—City News Service

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