Aklilu Lemma and Legesse Wolde-Yohannes, two Ethiopian researchers whose work focuses on schistosomiasis, have won the 1989 Right Livelihood Cash Award, which honors and supports research specifically geared toward improving the quality of human life. The prize is presented by the Right Livelihood Awards Foundation, a United Kingdom-based international charitable organization that has been giving four cash awards annually since 1980. The prize is the brainchild of Jakob von Uexkull, a Swedish-German writer and philatelic expert, who sold his stamp collection to provide the initial endowment because he believed that the Nobel Prizes had become too narrow and specialized in focus and ignored work that was vital for the survival of humankind.
Lemma, who is deputy director of UNICEF's International Child Development Center, Florence, Italy, and Wolde-Yohannes, of the Institute of Pathobiology, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, received the award December 9, one day before the Nobel Prize presentations, at a ...
