PRIX HUBLOT 2002

The “Prix Hublot” is awarded annually to a person or organization having distinguished themselves in a humanitarian program and aiding underprivileged children.
The MDM Foundation “Main dans la Main” (Hand in Hand), under the presidency of Mr. Carlo Crocco, has awarded this year the “Prix Hublot” of CHF 50,000 to Father FranÇois Laborde.

Born in Paris in 1927, Father Laborde felt his calling to serve God from his childhood. He was ordained a priest in 1951 at the age of twenty-four, went to India as a research scholar in 1965 and settled in Pilkhana, a huge slum in Howrah, West Bengal.

The poverty and misery of the people made a tremendous impact on him and he made it his personal mission to transform, in Pilkhana, one of the biggest slums in Asia into a more human place to live. Such was his desire to identify with the people and feel and experience their pain that he rarely stayed in his allotted room at the Howrah Presbytery, preferring to stay in the same wretched condition as the slum dwellers.

He then founded in 1976 “Seva Sangh Samiti”, a Voluntary Organization to help the needy children of the slums Bengal and Bihar. The main outpatients clinic of Pilkhana, with its very limited resources, receives every day several hundred miserable patients, an uninterrupted flow of suffering and poverty. He also set-up a number of dispensaries and centers for undernourished children where he personally attended the poor people and spent his nights hearing about their problems and worries.

He worked hard to raise funds to build the Premanagar housing colony in Howrah along with a school. Today, “Prem Nagar” has become a thriving center for many families.

In 1976, Father Laborde founded the present Howrah South Point, an organization focused on the Rehabilitation of the handicapped, irrespective of caste, creed or religion. A number of dispensaries for the poor were also set up in collaboration with the German Doctors' Committee in order to make health care available to the needy.

Howrah South Point presently runs seven homes for the handicapped, which take care of the needs of more than two hundreds and fifty physically, mentally & socially handicapped children. The organization runs seven out-door physiotherapy centers, three formal schools, two non-formal schools and regular and mobile dispensaries.

left to right: RenÉ Felber, former President of the Swiss Confederation, Father FranÇois Laborde, Carlo Crocco, Founding President of Hublot watches

The MDM Foundation has been most impressed by a life of such dedication for the poor, and has presented the award to Father Laborde, under the Presidency of RenÉ Felber, former President of Switzerland, during the press conference of Saturday 6th April 2002 at 13.00 p.m. at the Hublot Stand in the International Basel Fair.

For any further information, please contact [email protected]

Source: Hublot press release
April 2002