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Home / Awards / Servitor Pacis Award / 1999 THE SERVITOR PACIS AWARD RECIPIENTS 1999 - Vivian Pellas Born Vivian Fernández García on 5 March 1954 in Havana, Cuba, Mrs. Vivian Pellas is the founder and president of the Asociación Pro-Niños Quemados de Nicaragua (Association for the Burned Children of Nicaragua), which provides support to children who suffer burns and their tragic consequences. The motto of the Association is “Changing Tears into Smiles.” After the communist revolution, her family left Cuba for Nicaragua where they stayed until political conditions forced them to leave. After four years in Miami, she returned when the Sandinistas were removed from office in 1990. It was actually a trip between Managua and Miami and subsequent events that led to the birth of the Association. She founded the Association in 1991, two years after she and her husband Carlos survived a horrific plane crash in the Honduran mountains. Claiming the lives of 149 people and leaving only nine survivors, this crash was one of the worst in Central American aviation history. Mrs. Pellas remembered little of the scene after the crash, recalling only that her husband unfastened her seat belt, seeing a flash of light, being carried away from the flames that engulfed the plane, and finally arriving at the nearest hospital on a rickety truck that transported the survivors from the 5,000-ft. mountain. Mrs. Pellas was severely injured in the crash; 40 percent of her body was burned and she had 62 fractures. Amazingly, doctors in Central America and the United States were able to help her recover physically, but she had to relearn how to sit up, get out of bed and walk. Within two years, she was dancing and now directs a dance studio. Pushed to the limits of pain, she was still left with a seemingly unanswerable question: why were she and her husband still alive? It was hard to attribute their survival to mere luck or fate, but even harder to find reasons for it. After going over all the facts in the reports, visiting the scene of the crash, talking to local residents, friends, psychologists and priests, she became convinced that the hand of God was involved. Because her faith in God and the constant support of her family guided her though this battle and feeling united with those who suffer and fight for their lives, Mrs. Pellas decided to do all she could to help other burn victims. In 1991, she and Carlos brought INTERPLAST of California, the world’s largest organization of volunteer plastic surgeons, to Nicaragua. They also helped construct and maintain the burn unit at the Fernando Velez Paiz Hospital in Managua, which has treated over 50,000 children and 8,000 adults. Mrs. Pellas is the director of a project entitled “National Unit of Burn Victims and Plastic Surgery of Nicaragua” and a board member of Physicians for Peace and the Human Relief Organization, both located in Virginia. She is the founder of the Medical Education Program for the formation of Nicaraguan medical professionals, founder and sponsor of “A Toy at Christmas for the Hospitalized Children of Nicaragua” program, which distributes over 10,000 toys each Christmas, and hostess of the “Sea Legs” program, which provides prostheses for youth with leg amputations. In October 1998 she also hosted a telemarathon for victims of Hurricane Mitch which raised the equivalent of $630,000 in funds and an additional $500,000 in food and medicine, all of which were distributed through the Red Cross. Mrs. Pellas studied art at Barry College in Miami and humanities at the Jesuit Universidad Centroamericana de Managua. Married to Carlos Pellas Chamorro in 1976, they have three children. For her service to the children of Nicaragua who have suffered as burn victims and for her testimony of hope, joy and faith through her own suffering, the Path to Peace Foundation is pleased to bestow upon Mrs. Vivian Pellas the title of “Servitor Pacis” - Servant of Peace.
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