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Sora Park Tanjasiri, Kevin D. Williams and the Late Antronette K. Yancey Receive Champions of Health Professions Diversity Award
Pictured here (left to right) are honoree Sora Park Tanjasiri; honoree Kevin D. Williams and honoree Antronette Yancey’s long term partner Darlene Edgley
Los Angeles (June 25, 2013)- The California Wellness Foundation (TCWF) honored three inspiring leaders in health education at its 11th annual Champions of Health Professions Diversity Awards ceremony for their successful efforts to improve the health and wellness of California’s most underserved communities. Sora Park Tanjasiri, an educator and researcher at the department of health science at California State University, Fullerton, has guided minority students into health professions, while addressing health disparities through community-based research programs. Kevin D. Williams of Berkeley Youth Alternatives organizes 27 programs for at-risk youth and young adults, and provides direction to graduate-level students entering the public health field. The late Dr. Antronette K. Yancey was a professor in the department of health services and cofounder of the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity at UCLA.; she was tireless in her commitment to ensure that research findings would be translated to community programs and policy to transform lives.
In recognition of their efforts to mentor and inspire students and better serve the health and well-being of California’s underserved and disadvantaged communities, each honoree received a cash award of $25,000. As one of the only California Foundations making grants in this area, TCWF has awarded more than $49 million to increase the diversity of the health workforce though a variety of approaches, including research, scholarship, loan repayment programs and leadership recognition.
“It is a tremendous privilege to recognize these stellar individuals for their outstanding commitment to communities of color and their groundbreaking work to increase the ethnic diversity of the health care workforce,” said Crystal D. Crawford, TCWF program director.
The California Wellness Foundation is a private independent foundation created in 1992 with a mission to improve the health of the people of California by making grants for health promotion, wellness education and disease prevention. The Foundation prioritizes eight issues for funding: diversity in the health professions, environmental health, healthy aging, mental health, teenage pregnancy prevention, violence prevention, women’s health and work and health. It also responds to timely issues and special projects outside the funding priorities.
Since its founding in 1992, TCWF has awarded 6,919 grants totaling more than $852 million. Please visit TCWF’s website at CalWellness.org for more information, including a newsroom section devoted to the award and the three honorees. High-resolution photos are available. Video interview clips are posted at TCWF’s YouTube channel.
