As the world’s largest archipelago, Indonesia is blessed with abundant natural resources and biodiversity, but it has also come under severe pressure from human growth and exploitation. This is no more apparent than in Sumatra Island’s Leuser Ecosystem, a 2.6-million-hectare expanse in Aceh province where some of the world’s most highly endangered species have managed to survive.

However, despite being named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 and a protected National Strategic Area in 2008, the Leuser Ecosystem has continued to be ravaged by deforestation, infrastructure, commercialization, and weak law enforcement. Worse, the Leuser Ecosystem Management Authority or Badan Pengelola Kawasan Ekosistem Leuser (BPKEL), which had been fighting the ecosystem’s destructive intruders in court, was abolished by the Aceh government in 2013.

Instead of giving up, some BPKEL ex-employees got together to form a new organization called the Forest Nature and Environment of Aceh Foundation or Yayasan Hutan Alam dan Lingkungan Aceh (HAkA), dedicated to protecting, preserving, and restoring the Leuser Ecosystem.

Leading HAkA from the beginning was a young woman named FARWIZA FARHAN who saw in the Leuser Ecosystem an opportunity not only to save preserve nature at its best but also to engage local communities in securing their own future. Born in Aceh in 1986, FARHAN as a young girl had fallen in love with its natural beauty, leading her to dream of becoming a marine biologist and working in conservation. Pursuing her education overseas and returning as an adult with a master’s degree in environmental management, she was stunned and saddened to see how her beloved forests had been ravaged by commercial exploitation.

Taking it personally, she joined BPKEL. When it was shut down, she founded HAkA. Instead of depending solely on the government, HAkA believed in the power of local people, especially women, to safeguard the ecosystem through a vigorous advocacy campaign, forest monitoring, and community empowerment.

Since its establishment, among other successes, HAkA helped to achieve a court verdict that led to USD 26 million in fines against a palm oil company that burned forests in the Leuser Ecosystem, and stopped a hydroelectric dam that would have threatened the elephant’s habitat. The money was used by the government to rehabilitate the damaged areas.

But an equally important albeit less visible victory has been HAkA’s mobilization of Aceh’s citizens in protecting their environment. HAkA has done this, first, by informing the people about the Leuser Ecosystem and its importance, and also by including the ecosystem in the curricula of local schools and universities. HAkA has employed a geographic information system and other forest monitoring tools to assist local governments, communities, and universities in monitoring Aceh’s forest areas in real time. Looking to the future, HAkA also promoted community-based sustainable forest management to ensure improved management of forests.

HAkA’s programs for and with women are particularly effective and encouraging. Women are given paralegal and citizen-journalism training, engaged in micro-entrepreneurship, and organized into women-led ranger groups that patrol forest areas to monitor poaching and illegal logging. The women are supported by men who are similarly trained.

In a society where women have traditionally been relegated to secondary roles, none of these would have been possible without the energetic, courageous, and visionary leadership of FARHAN. A young Muslim, she has defied conventions to serve as an inspiration and a model for a new generation of Indonesian women coming into their own and taking charge of their lives and future. As HAkA’s chairperson, FARHAN has not led from the top, but rather from below, encouraging decentralization to promote sustainability and resiliency within the organization and develop the next ranks of environmental champions. She often works in the background and with local actors, but she also liaises with government officials, donors, and academics—anyone whom she can bring into the fold of HAkA’s concerns for Aceh’s environment and its people.

For her efforts, FARHAN has been recognized by many international institutions. Her greatest reward, however, has been to see HAkA’s initiatives bear fruit, not only in a resurgent forest and environment but also in the change of values and attitudes among the people she and HAkA have reached: “Throughout my training, we were taught that the local members of the community are often the perpetrators of illegal logging, of poaching, of destructions in wildlife habitats,” she observes. “But then, when you spend more time with them, you will realize that they are also the best protectors of wildlife. They are also dealing with the pressure of losing their lands and their rights as much as the animals are losing their habitats.” With foresight and tenacity, FARHAN is a prime exemplar of what can be done against all odds: “I can’t stop global temperature from changing, but if it’s the forest, there’s a bit more that I can do than surrendering to global challenges.”

In electing FARWIZA FARHAN to receive the 2024 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes her profound understanding of the vital connection between nature and humanity, her commitment to social justice and responsible citizenship through her work with forest communities, and her promotion of greater awareness of the need to protect the beating heart and lungs of her country’s and Asia’s rich but endangered natural resources.

The Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, my fellow Ramon Magsaysay Awardees, members of the diplomatic corps, fellow activists, esteemed guests, ladies and gentlemen:

While I am humbled and honored to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the truth is, more than feeling humility and honor, I am in disbelief.
I could not believe that I am entrusted with this recognition – an Award that I would not even dare imagine.

I would like to thank the Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for your trust, your support, but more so, the risk in bestowing me this Award.

Although it is my name inscribed on the medallion, this recognition and this achievement is not mine and will never be mine alone. The conservation work in the Leuser Ecosystem is being done by an entire community of dedicated and passionate individuals – from my colleagues at Yayasan HAkA, my co-founder, Badrul Irfan, our partners in the villages and at the government level, and in civil society as well as our donors and long-term supporters. This Award is theirs, and I stand before you to represent all of the people who are united in environmental protection.

Today, as we celebrate the good work that is being collectively done in the Leuser Ecosystem, the forest in Singkil Peatswamp located at its southwest corner continues to be decimated. This is proof that our work is far from over.

I am grateful that while there is so much more to be done, there are many people willing to collaborate with us. Together with Dhandy Laksono, my fellow Indonesians who received this same Award in 2021, we are launching a film called 17 Sweet Letters, a chronicle that poses the question: how well conserved are conservation areas in Indonesia?

As we roll out the promotion for this documentary, the authorities are already using tactics of intimidation to prevent its release and wide circulation. But it takes more than brute force to slow down a bunch of stubborn fighters like us. Bang Badrul, Rubama, Lukman, Irham, Fahmi, Agung dan Ikhsan, kegigihan dan ketangguhan kalian menjadi pilar kekuatan kerja-kerja kolektif kita. Your grit and determination have become the pillar of our collective work. I am grateful that we continue to find many stubborn fighters to be our allies. I hope you will join us in ensuring that the destruction of Singkil Peat Swamp is discussed in as many parts of Asia as possible.

In closing, please allow me to express my deepest love and gratitude to my parents, Dr. Ahmad Farhan Hamid and Ms. Ferry Soraya, the people who have raised me to be the person I am, and never give up on me when everything seems dark and impossible. Please stand up so others could see you too. Finally, no words could describe my gratitude to Prio Sambodho, the man who choose to marry this stubborn fighter and continue to support me in the work that I do.

The United Nations has called marine plastic pollution “a slow-moving catastrophe” that threatens the economy, health, and well-being of nations. It is truly a global, transborder problem that should challenge all since plastic dumped in countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, carried by ocean currents, can appear on the shores of Kenya or Tanzania in Africa.

In Indonesia, a young Frenchman, GARY BENCHEGHIB, is a remarkable and surprising warrior in the fight against marine plastic pollution. When he was nine years old, his parents chose to live in Bali and this has been his home ever since. Moved by a love for nature and adventure, he discovered early on that Bali was not entirely tourism’s picture-perfect paradise; over 30,000 tons of plastic refuse travel down Bali’s waterways annually. Indonesia is the largest contributor of marine plastic pollution in the world after China, accounting for more than 600,000 tons of plastic dumped into the world’s oceans every year. GARY was only fourteen-years-old when he and his sister Kelly, age sixteen, and brother Sam, twelve, started a weekly beach clean-up with friends. This effort turned into an organization called “Make a Change World,” that would produce inspiring, educational multi-media content on plastic pollution and environmental protection.

In Indonesia and the United States (where GARY took up filmmaking at the New York Film Academy), GARY and his team pursued what he calls “crazy ideas,” exploring the polluted waterways of New York City, circumnavigating the island of Bali in a repurposed traditional fishing boat, and documenting brother Sam in his run across the American continent with recycled plastic shoes. Raising public awareness of the environment, and realizing the important role of documentary filmmaking, particularly among the young, would lead him to produce more than a hundred videos on plastic pollution and environmental protection, posted on YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms, from short-form videos 00:01:30-00:02:09 in length to feature films that have been seen by millions.

In 2017, GARY and his team kayaked and filmed an expedition on the Citarum River in West Java, dramatizing the state of what was called “the world’s most polluted river.” The documentary, a dramatic series of nine videos, generated wide public interest and triggered a response from President Joko Widodo himself as the Indonesian government embarked on a seven-year Citarum River rehabilitation program.

This would inspire GARY as well to move from publicity to field implementation when he and his siblings established Sungai Watch in 2020. In the project, multiple types of locally fabricated, moveable trash barriers are chosen and deployed according to the river’s characteristics and location; the trash is collected daily and sorted by staff and local volunteers; and “audited” in a process in which each piece of plastic is identified according to type, brand, and producer (using methods like scanning barcodes). It is an all-around, data-driven effort that involves community-level education and participation, partnerships with other environmental organizations, and community and corporate sponsorships of individual trash barriers and other activities. Sungai Watch likewise runs Indonesia’s first trash hotline for citizens to report trash locations on a dedicated WhatsApp line. To date, Sungai Watch has set up 150 trash barriers in Bali and twenty trash barriers in Java and have collected over a million kilograms of organic and non-organic waste. The organization’s next goal is to install a thousand trash barriers across Indonesia’s most polluted rivers. Of his “crazy ideas,” GARY says: “The problem of plastic pollution is a huge one but if we have that dream, that conviction, and that passion, then things can happen.”

In electing GARY BENCHEGHIB to receive the 2022 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his inspiring fight against marine plastic pollution, an issue at once intensely local as well as global; his youthful energies in combining nature, adventure, video, and technology as weapons for social advocacy; and his creative, risk-taking passion that is truly a shining example for the youth and the world.

Maligayan pagbati sa Pilipinas na… walang plastik!

Now imagine if that was a saying. “Welcome to a Plastic Free Philippines!”

My short life’s journey has pretty much only revolved around plastics.

In fact so much so that when I was a young boy, I will always remember walking to school one day, when my mother told me, “If you don’t do your homework you’ll end up being a garbage man.”

Today I am deeply honored to be receiving the Ramon Magsaysay award for my work as a garbage man.

Sometimes, I wake up and it feels like a never-ending battle. We will be knee-deep in a river cleaning it up and feeling victorious, but the very next day with big rains, the river is filled with more trash than the previous day.

A new study reveals that there is no surface on earth without signs of plastic pollution. This means that every island in the Philippines, in Indonesia, under some shell, under some rock has plastic pollution.

Every single minute, a garbage truck full of plastic pollution enters our ocean from rivers globally.

In the next decade, we are set to triple global plastic production. Is this really the legacy that we want to leave behind?

It calls for collective action, we need a radical shift in how we think and how we use plastics. And it starts directly in our rivers, where we can still stop this disaster from destroying our planet and our health.

We need to focus on scalable solutions and implement them quickly. In 2 short years of running Sungai Watch, we have seen the potential for change by harnessing the power of community. In 2 short years of running Sungai Watch, we have already had to move some of our barriers because no more plastics are polluting those rivers due to growing public awareness about plastic pollution. It feels as if those rivers have officially “graduated” from our programs.

But we are destructing our planet, quicker than we can fix it. And now, we need to let our planet rest.

We have cleaned up some of the worst disaster relief areas. And when we fully restore these areas and let nature do its work. We have seen mangroves regrow. We have seen fish come back.

But cleaning up plastics is only half of the battle. Processing the trash and turning it into valuable products is a whole other game. So that is what we are doing. We are collecting, sorting, processing, treating, and recycling the trash that we collect.

What if we could sweep all the plastic out there and use it for good? Turn garbage into an economical incentive to fund back our cleanup programs.

Our next goal is to install 1,000 barriers throughout the world’s most polluted rivers but we can’t do this alone. There is a lot of work ahead of us and this is just the beginning, but I hope that everyone here today will join me in some small way on this lifelong journey against plastic pollution.

The little boy inside of me would have never dreamed once to become a garbage man doing everything in my power to make sure that we can win this plastic war. What a celebration it is to be here in the Philippines tonight!

The rise of digital media carried with it the promise of democratization in the ways in which knowledge is produced, distributed, and consumed, and the ways in which the people themselves can directly and actively participate in media’s making. Digital media is not an unmixed blessing, as shown in today’s extreme fragmentation in the field, the distressing realities of digitally-aided manipulation, “false news,” and censorship. Still, it remains full of possibilities for widening democratic space.

In Indonesia, there is excitement and hope in the media venture called WATCHDOC MEDIA MANDIRI or WATCHDOC (from “watchdog” + “documentary”), that combines the tools of investigative journalism, documentary filmmaking, and digital technology. WATCHDOC’s advocacy is to create public awareness of such issues as human rights, social justice, and the environment. The private audiovisual production company was incorporated in 2011 by two remarkable individuals, Dandhy Laksono and Andhy Panca Kurniawan, both with journalism backgrounds and a passion for social causes. Disenchanted with mainstream broadcast TV—the concentration of media ownership, the premium on ratings, advertising, and revenues, the merchandising of entertainment and news—Laksono and Kurniawan yearned for an independent, people-based, and socially responsible media.

Strongly embedded in civil society, WATCHDOC draws its material and themes from issues of public concern that have not been treated adequately in mainstream media or presented from a people’s perspective. With a lean permanent staff of fifteen, WATCHDOC sees itself as a movement and not just a content creator. To work independently and reach the greatest number of people, it taps non-traditional and emerging platforms and is not fixated on just a single distribution strategy. Using its   independently-produced advocacy films, WATCHDOC builds a robust audience through offline distribution, social media, and other alternative channels including partnerships with non-government organizations to screen films in remote, indigenous communities. WATCHDOC also cultivates logistical and funding support through collaborations and cross-subsidies with similarly-minded groups and institutions.

In less than a decade of existence, through its two YouTube channels and other platforms, WATCHDOC has produced and distributed over 150 film titles that average two hundred thousand viewers per video. Eight of its documentaries have each attracted more than one million views. One of them, called Sexy Killers, a documentary on the coal mining industry’s links with Indonesia’s political establishment, is a viral hit, getting thirty six million views as of July 2021.

The group’s adventurous spirit is exemplified by a major project in 2015 called Expedisi Indonesia Biru (Blue Indonesia Expedition), in which Laksono and co-filmmaker Suparta Arz went on a motorbike journey across Indonesia for a year, studying and recording what was happening to ordinary citizens like farmers, fishermen, and indigenous peoples. The journey eventually resulted in a twelve-part documentary film series, exposing such problems as the impact on the environment of the palm oil industry, the fight of locals against the construction of a cement factory in Central Java, and other issues that received a lot of attention from government and the public.

A great part of WATCHDOC’s influence is the credibility it enjoys because of its reputation for journalistic integrity; they have refused bribes or partnerships with known violators of human rights and environmental laws. It sticks to basics, doing strongly-researched, fact-based, quality work. It builds a constituency by staying close to its audience, holding pre-screenings and group discussions with non-government organizations and local communities. WATCHDOC is a young organization and knows societies are not changed overnight. As Laksono says, “We realize the goal is still very far away. Even though the macro-policy has not changed, if these small things become a movement, gradually it will be strong.”

In electing WATCHDOC MEDIA MANDIRI to receive the 2021 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes its highly principled crusade for an independent media organization, its energetic use of investigative journalism, documentary filmmaking, and digital technology in its effort to transform Indonesia’s media landscape, and its commitment to a vision of the people themselves as makers of media and shapers of their own world.

Represented by Watchdoc Founder, Andhy Panca Kurniawan

First of all, on behalf of my colleagues from WATCHDOC MEDIA MANDIRI, let me express my deepest gratitude for this Award, appreciation, and recognition. It is like a new social contract between WATCHDOC and the broader community across state borders.

For your information, WATCHDOC is a production house that has released more than 400 documentaries and 1,000 television features. This includes various films such as “Sexy Killers”, “The EndGame”, “Kinipan”, “The Mahuzes”, “Asimetris”, and hundreds of other works that are mostly accessible online. We at WATCHDOC also manage an inclusive video production training unit for all.

To be recognized and acknowledged as a Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Emergent Leadership is a great honor and a great pleasure for us.  We are motivated and our spirits are boosted to make more documentary films and to promote human rights louder and clearer through them.

Twelve years ago, we pioneered the production house WATCHDOC.  Ten years ago, we formalized it into a private production house.  We imagined it to be an integral part of a social movement―making documentaries as a communication tool for us to learn from each other, to strengthen each other, and to become a platform for the struggles of civil society.

To realize the social movement we imagined, our productions focus on themes concerning public interest and the function of the media in influencing and shaping society.  WATCHDOC combines this with an inclusive distribution strategy easily accessible by a wide audience.  And as the media chooses to form private companies as a method of achieving sustainability, this Award has also become a pivotal moment when we are committing to continue what we have pioneered and started.

This Award is a reminder that we must all increasingly and systematically strive to present realities in society. Because these awards are given to organizations or institutions, not specific individuals or films. We would like to dedicate this Award to all the Watchdoc Communities, those who have been working with us, all our viewers, Asian people and all of you.

Thank you to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, to our predecessors who have received this Award, and to the peoples of Asia. You are all a source of inspiration and positive energy for the civil society movement today and in the future.

Indonesia is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries, and its indigenous peoples (IPs) are estimated at seventy million, or nearly 30% of the country’s population. However, the question of who they are, where they are, and what rights they can claim is contentious in light of state policy that, in the name of national integration and unity avoids facing the realities of ethnic division.

This is the challenge that an IP movement in Indonesia has taken up, and in this movement one person has played a strategic role. ABDON NABABAN, a Toba Batak from Sumatra, began his social advocacy as a student and continued as a non-government organization (NGO) officer after graduation. In 1999, after the fall of the Suharto regime, he was one of the organizers of a congress that launched AMAN (Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara, or “Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago,” a mass-based organization that today has over 115 local chapters and 21 regional chapters throughout the country’s thirty-four provinces; collectively, AMAN represents over 17 million members. As AMAN executive secretary and later its secretary-general, NABABAN has led what is now Indonesia’s largest, most influential non-state organization.

When AMAN started, Indonesia’s indigenous peoples, masyarakat adat, were defined by state policy in a way that limited their official recognition to only one million people. AMAN’s major challenge was to represent the actual vast population of masyarakat adat, totaling fifty to seventy million, and thus become a real, autonomous force. AMAN also needed to build its strength as a movement to a level where it could effectively influence state policy. Under NABABAN’s leadership, AMAN’s legal challenge to existing forestry laws finally won in 2012 a landmark constitutional court ruling which decreed that forests in IP territories are not “state forests,” thus returning some fifty-seven million hectares of government-controlled forest land to indigenous communities.

In a related initiative, NABABAN shepherded a massive effort to produce “One Map” of the country’s vast IP territories, after AMAN and supporting NGOs launched the Ancestral Domain Registration Agency in 2010, to create a single data base for verifying land/forest claims on ownership, use, and tenure in view of incomplete, inaccurate and conflicting government data. By 2016, AMAN had submitted to government “indigenous maps” covering 8.23 million hectares. But NABABAN’s arduous crusade continues: the constitutional court ruling and AMAN’s maps still await implementation.

Still AMAN under NABABAN’s dynamic guidance, has raised the bar in declaring that IPs will no longer be placeless and invisible. Equally important, AMAN has built up its membership from 200 communities in 1999 to 2,342 communities in 2017, representing a constituency of seventeen million individuals. It raised its public visibility and worked collaboratively with government in legal reform, conflict settlement, and economic empowerment. In the 2014 election of President Joko Widodo, AMAN delivered 12 million votes for Widodo after he made six commitments to address the IP sector’s needs. While government still has to deliver on these campaign commitments, AMAN has proven that it is a political force that cannot be ignored.

Acknowledged as the single most important person in Indonesia’s IP movement, NABABAN has worked tirelessly for twenty-four years, braving great difficulties and at tremendous cost to himself and his family. Before AMAN, he was not really conscious of what it meant to be an indigenous person until, working in an anti-logging campaign, he realized that the land taken over by a big industrial lumber estate was actually ancestral land that belonged to his grandparents and other Toba Batak families. He has since raised this discovery of IP identity and responsibility to involve millions of others. Speaking with quiet force he says, “t’s about self-identification. You have to make people understand: ‘This is about me. This is about my forest, this is about my land, this is about my water'”

In electing ABDON NABABAN to receive the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his brave, self-sacrificing advocacy to give voice and face to his country’s IP communities, his principled, relentless, yet pragmatic leadership of the world’s largest IP rights movement, and the far-reaching impact of his work on the lives of millions of Indonesians.

I receive this award with infinite gratitude to the creator of the universe, God almighty, and the ancestors who protect, accompany, and guard me always. I would also like, from the bottom of my heart, to thank all my friends in AMAN. This award is for us.

I dedicate this award to my parents, my wife Devi, and my daughters Meilonia, Mena, and Mayang, who are at home but with me here, too.

Me and my family, we’ve been through a lot. There were even times when I was scared. But, everytime, we overcame. And we grew.

I became an activist in the late ’80s, opposing the all-too-powerful New Order Regime. In the ’90s I realized that I was also a victim. I am one of millions of indigenous peoples in Indonesia. At the time, I, an activist, a victim, an indigenous person, fought an industrial forest company in our ancestral lands. That company, however, was just a front for the real oppressor: authoritarianism and developmentalism. For them, we, the indigenous peoples, were not wanted. We are to be oppressed, to be eradicated, criminalized, impoverished, victimized. Devi, you knew all this, through the years of our frugal life together. You stood by me every time, with trust, hope, and love.

From the very beginning, I have been on assignments given by my people and constituents: to initiate and lead organizations and alliances for the oppressed and for the environment. Because those assignments come with hope and trust, too. My latest assignment is from the indigenous peoples in North Sumatra, that is, to run for governor. This is a province so corrupt and violent.

It took me and my family a long time to finally overcome the fear for our physical, financial, political, and social well-being with this assignment. Again, because of the trust and hope placed upon me, I said, “Yes, I am running for governor of North Sumatra.”

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight is also a night to ask ourselves: where do we come from? What values, what spirit can we offer our society and our earth?

When differing opinions or interests manifest into violent conflicts, when the misuse of religion causes more killings, when developing the economy means destroying the environment, standing here before you, I offer the values and spirit of indigenous peoples to tackle present-day problems of our society and the environment, inequality, crimes, climate change, in a way that is not violent, but humane and sustainable.

And let our countries, Indonesia and the Philippines, lead the world towards peace, where the well-being of people, plants, animals, water, soils, and air prevail.

Zakat (“charity”) is a cornerstone of the Islamic faith. It is the obligatory tax on an adult Muslim’s wealth, that is dedicated every year to helping the poor and needy. In Indonesia, with the largest Muslim population in the world, the potential of zakat for wealth distribution and social amelioration is huge. In 2015, the potential zakat collection was estimated at around three percent of Indonesia’s gross national product, or a total of at least USD28 billion. Yet, what was actually collected was only ten percent of this amount. The collection, management, and use of zakat have long been stymied by inefficiencies, corruption, and abuse. The government has worked to regulate zakat management but anxieties remain on questions of transparency, accountability, and effectiveness in serving the poor.

In 1993, Parni Hadi, editor-in-chief of the Indonesian newspaper Republika, started a modest zakat collection drive among the newspaper’s employees, that later expanded to include the paper’s readers and the general public. The results were so encouraging that Hadi and his colleagues formed DOMPET DHUAFA REPUBLIKA (DDR), or “Wallet of the Poor,” which was officially registered as a charity organization and zakat collector. With a strong sense of purpose, DDR sought to transform traditional zakat philanthropy for the poor from simple “charity” to “empowerment”, so that the poor could move from being dependent “recipients” of alms towards becoming wealth creators, and eventually “contributors” of alms themselves. So DDR moved zakat funds from customary practices of charitable giving to social development projects aimed at building self-reliant communities and capacitating the poor, Muslims and non-Muslims, through programs of economic assistance, health services, education and training, and diverse other activities.

Now independent of Republika and known simply as DD (short for “DOMPET DHUAFA”) the organization’s economic projects have included building public facilities, support for small and medium enterprises, farm production and marketing assistance, a bank providing preferential loans to the poor, and a training-and-support program that has upgraded the capacities of hundreds of microfinance groups in Indonesia. In the health sector, DD has established free clinics and a free, well-staffed, and well-equipped hospital for the poor that is the first of its kind in the country. In education, DD annually supports 400 poor university scholars; runs a free boarding high school for poor but deserving students; and operates a teacher training school, as well as a vocational and entrepreneurship center that trains a thousand people per year.

From the start, DD’s leaders have addressed the ills besetting the credibility and impact of the country’s zakat institutions: they scrupulously practice transparency and full accountability in their financial and governance systems, set and maintain professional standards in their zakat collection, and carefully target those in greatest need, and adopt marketing strategies that encourage and facilitate giving from Muslims within the country and elsewhere in the world. As a separate initiative DD has generously shared its expertise, training other zakat collection organizations to modernize their operations and professionalize the work of their zakat managers.

DOMPET DHUAFA has grown phenomenally to become the largest philanthropic organization in Indonesia today, in terms of donations received. In 2015, DD collected total donations equivalent to USD 20.2 million With offices in twelve Indonesian provinces and five foreign countries, DD’s 200 employees, and 10,000 volunteers have reached thirteen million beneficiaries as of 2015, of whom at least twenty percent have moved out of poverty. With the public trust it enjoys and its work in supporting other zakat organizations, DD continues to raise the level of zakat donations in Indonesia. But just as important, it has widened the space and opportunity for Indonesians, through zakat, to become “good Muslims.” It has created as well an inspiring model, for other nations and religions, of disciplined, sustainable faith-based development.

In electing DOMPET DHUAFA to receive the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes the organization and its leaders for redefining the landscape of zakat-based philanthropy in Indonesia, unleashing the potential of the Islamic faith to uplift, irrespective of their creed, the lives of millions.

We would like to convey our gratitude for the trust that Ramon Magsaysay Foundation has given to Dompet Dhuafa Republika in receiving this noble award, the Ramond Magsaysay Award 2016. I’m standing here today as the representative of Mr. Parni Hadi, our founder and chairman, who regrettably is unable to be present here this evening with us because he needs to have medical check-up as suggested by doctor.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have just obtained the information that Dompet Dhuafa Republika is chosen to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award last July. The news definitely overjoyed us and added to our bliss, since per July 2016 Dompet Dhuafa Republika has reached its 23 years of age working for the people of Indonesia and the World. On 2nd of July 1993, inspired by the struggle carried out by the Corps Dakwah Pedesaan who continuously made an effort to resolve social issues in the poor area of Gunung Kidul, the founder of Dompet Dhuafa, Mr Parni Hadi, who also publisher and editor in chief of Republika Daily Newspaper decided to establish a caring program for the poor. The program that materialized as a rubric in the Republika Daily Newspaper was named Dompet Dhuafa. It was in 1994 where DD was established as a foundation and officially named Dompet Dhuafa Republika, abbreviated as DDR or just DD. It is an independent foundation, separated from the Republika management and any other political organization. To all journalists in the Republika Daily Newspaper, the responsibility to take part in social mission was a form of implementation of the prophetic mission. This is called Prophetic Journalism.

Dompet Dhuafa in Indonesian literally means Wallet/Purse for the Poor. It also stands for Donation for Destitutes (Dhuafa). DD means Dignity and Devotion. We are trying to uplift the dignity of the Poor as an action of Devotion to Allah, God, the Almighty.
We present this award to DD- Destitutes and Donors as our thanks of honor. DD is a manifestation of Prophetic Journalism (Journalism of Love). DD is an organization of LOVE for all human beings and all creatures.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dompet Dhuafa Republika has a strong ideal to encourage Zakat, Infaq, Shodaqoh and Waqf as one of solutions to resolve poverty problems and other social issues in Indonesia as a country with the largest Moslem population in the world. Dompet Dhuafa Republika attempts to develop a more professional zakat management so it can give more significant effect to the welfare of the people.

Since the starting of our endeavors in 1993, until today there are 128,000 donors that support Dompet Dhuafa’s activities. Their supports have given benefits to almost 13,000,000 poor people through 522 services, empowerment and advocacy programs in the field of economy, education, health and social. Yayasan Dompet Dhuafa has also been supported by dedications and sincerities of 10,000 volunteers. Dompet Dhuafa has opened branches and representative offices in 17 provinces in Indonesia and also in 5 countries. With no State territorial boundaries, Dompet Dhuafa Republika has also deployed a range of programs in 31 countries including taking part in helping the disasters victims in Illigan and Tacloban Philippine. With remarkable collaboration from various parties, it is worthy to be conveyed that the achievements accomplished by Dompet Dhuafa Republika are the results of hard-work, caring-work and the work of a lot of people since this organization was found.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we dedicate this award to all the poor people who have the passions and work-ethos to rise despite the limitations. We also would like to present this award to donors both individuals and institutional who have earnestly lend a hand and move together to lift up the dignity of the poor. We also wish to dedicate this award to all actuators of zakat institutions and social organizations to continue strengthening their devotions in creating a better society.

Indonesia’s rainforests, the world’s third largest, are gravely threatened. Worse, it is not just forests that are being decimated by rampant corporate interests, government negligence, corruption, and other destructive practices. What stands threatened as well is the very existence of an estimated forty million indigenous peoples who live within the forest, and who are dependent on forest resources for their food, shelter, and livelihood.

In 1999, SAUR MARLINA MANURUNG, a young Indonesian anthropologist, decided to devote her life to protecting and uplifting the lives of Indonesia’s Orang Rimba, the local name for “forest people.” Her life choice was both radical and surprising. Though drawn even as a child to an outdoor life, MANURUNG, known universally as “BUTET,” was raised in the sheltered environment of a middle-class family in Jakarta. With degrees in literature and anthropology, she could easily have chosen a career as a citified academic. But she said: “I’d had enough just playing around with nature. It was time for me to do something and become useful.”

After working as an education facilitator for four years with a forest conservation organization in Sumatra, BUTET formed SOKOLA with four other NGO colleagues, focusing on the education of forest people starting in the Jambi jungle. Their major program called Sokola Rimba, or “Jungle School,” was inspired by BUTET’s direct experience as a nomadic teacher, living with the Orang Rimba and moving with them as they traveled from place to place to hunt or gather forest products. Armed with only a small blackboard, some chalk, a few books and pencils, for eight years BUTET would teach groups of children out in the open, focusing on basic literacy and relevant life skills.

Focused on the Bukit Duabelas National Park in Central Sumatra, where an estimated 3,500 Orang Rimba live in relative isolation. SOKOLA’s volunteer teachers do not follow a fixed template but customize their teaching to the local context in consultation with the Orang Rimba community SOKOLA emphasizes life-skills rather than academic knowledge, stressing basic literacy for children and practical skills to cope with the changing forest environment. Increasingly, Orang Rimba have to deal with the encroachment of forest-exploiting businesses, government agencies, threatening their basic rights, livelihoods, and community cohesion. Since the Orang Rimba are hunters-and-gatherers, SOKOLA schedules are flexible and teachers must follow them as they move.

BUTET and her volunteer teachers struggle with the challenge of sustaining an organization that relies mainly on donations and volunteerism, the dangers of working in remote locations (caught between illegal loggers and the people they seek to help), and cultural taboos that discourage girls from being schooled. Impressively, BUTET’s leadership has built up SOKOLA into a network of fourteen schools in ten provinces, run by volunteer teachers and trained Orang Rimba youth, benefitting ten thousand children and adults. A cadre of young, newly-literate Orang Rimba are now able to serve their people as tutors and community leaders. Trained in advocacy and empowered to do liaison between their communities and the outside world, these youth represent their elders and “speak to the national government” on policies that impact on the forest people. SOKOLA’s challenges remain formidable, but an undeterred BUTET is confident that SOKOLA’s second generation of volunteer teachers will grow and inspire similar initiatives by others. She herself does not plan to do anything else. “As long as I can still carry my backpack and I can still walk, nothing and no one can stop me,” she quietly asserts.

In electing SAUR MARLINA MANURUNG to receive the 2014 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her ennobling passion to protect and improve the lives of Indonesia’s forest people, and her energizing leadership of volunteers in SOKOLA’s customized education program that is sensitive to the lifeways of indigenous communities and the unique development challenges they face

Good afternoon, magandang hapon. May I first express my gratitude to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for making it possible for me to be here on this special day. Thank you RMAF President Abella and your fantastic team!

I believe every person on this earth has his or her own dreams. When I was a child, I was a huge fan of adventure books and films. I dreamt that one day I would work in the middle of a jungle just like Indiana Jones. My work in my country’s jungles over the last fifteen years has been a dream for me, and getting awards has never been my goal. I am simply a tool that was sharpened by those around me, first and foremost my dear students in the jungle, who are my life-teachers.

A nation’s progress is often judged by the strength of its economy or the size of its GDP. Many people feel indigenous peoples (or IPs for short) should also contribute to this type of ‘progress’. GDP does not calculate what is valuable in the eyes of IPs: the cost of lost cultures and local knowledge, dramatic reductions in biodiversity and the negative impacts of such reductions on social capital.

The Orang Rimba, our term for the forest people, with whom I have worked for many years are nomadic hunters and gatherers, who lived isolated in the rainforest of Sumatra for thousands of years. They were not able to understand numbers when buying and selling goods at the market; they did not comprehend the contracts they were signing which sold their lands. They were unable to participate in the forums which discussed their collective futures. All of this is because they were illiterate, unable to speak Indonesian, and were not aware of their rights. Similar issues are faced by indigenous peoples worldwide.

Now they have these skills they have more power in taking control over resources to sustain their lives, and are able to make informed decisions affecting their futures. Literacy has become their main capital for gaining other expertise. Therefore appropriate education with appropriate methods is a crucial investment.

It saddens me that we have become so detached from nature. I believe the world would be a better place if we had more respect for indigenous peoples and their choices. They are small in number, making up only less than one percent of the world’s population, yet they inhabit almost one-third of the world’s arable land.

The Orang Rimba have taught me many things about life, not to mention fun! Orang Rimba have also been the proving grounds for all teachers at SOKOLA and myself. We began our adventure there and as we gained confidence, we were able to build schools throughout Indonesia. Thank you friends! I stand here representing you. For all indigenous peoples throughout the world, I send you this message: “I hope the time has come that you can represent yourselves and determine your own fate.”

I am not the only person who has this vision. It is shared by all of us in SOKOLA, and many other persons and groups in Indonesia and elsewhere who work with IPs.

I cannot end my response without thanking those who have led me to accept this great honor today. Thank you to my amazing team, SOKOLA. Without your support and passion, I would not be here. I hope this award will inspire us at SOKOLA to continue to deliver the best possible education outcomes so our people will have a better chance to realize self-determination. Thank you to the many dear friends and supporters of SOKOLA across Indonesia and other countries. Thank you also to my loving husband Kelvin, and my family who always understand me and have guided this stubborn head of mine from when I was a small child until today.

Corruption is a social cancer. It undermines development, erodes public trust in government, weakens the state, and infects the morals of society. It is an urgent concern, particularly in developing nations that can ill afford its cost. One such nation is Indonesia, for many years ranked among “the most corrupt countries in the world.” Today, however, Indonesia is embarked on one of the world’s most admired campaigns against corruption.

Rampant and systemic corruption has long been a festering issue in Indonesia. Since the 1950s, the Indonesian government formed different anti-corruption bodies, but these were mostly short-lived showcase pieces, sabotaged by the lack of serious political will. Then, amid the collapse of the thirty-two year Soeharto regime, Indonesians decided they had had enough, and resolved to take the problem by the horns. With the initiative of civil society and pressure from international organizations, the Indonesian government passed a law in 2002 creating KOMISI PEMBERANTASAN KORUPSI (KPK), or the Corruption Eradication Commission.

An independent government body, KPK is enabled by a strongly-crafted law premised on the conviction that corruption is an extraordinary problem that needs to be tackled by extraordinary means. Thus KPK has a far-reaching mandate, exercising exceptional powers that range from investigation and prosecution to prevention and the coordination of agencies authorized to combat corruption. It can conduct searches and seizures, freeze assets, impose travel bans, compel cooperation from government agencies, and even intercept communications without prior judicial approval. Its powers are such that a civic leader remarked, upon the law’s passage, that politicians were “inviting a tiger into their house. “But KPK’s powers are not just prosecutorial; they are preventive as well. It carries out audits on officials, undertakes public awareness campaigns, and studies government management systems to reduce the potential for corruption. Collectively governed by five commissioners and with selected non-government representation, KPK has undergone a process of institutional strengthening that has produced a highly professional workforce, capacitated with cutting-edge technologies, and governed by a strong internal code of ethics.

Its accomplishments have been impressive. From 2003 to 2012, KPK has handled 332 high-profile cases involving top government officials; of these, 169 cases have been processed in court, and KPK has chalked up an amazing one-hundred percent conviction rate. From 2004 to 2010, KPK has returned to the state treasury recovered assets worth Rp. 805.6 billion, or more than US$80 million. Less spectacular but exceedingly important are KPK’s preventive programs. It has undertaken civil service reforms for greater accountability and transparency, tightening rules on wealth reporting by public officials, closing opportunities for corruption through changes in management and operational systems, and setting up “integrity zones” in the bureaucracy as a way of monitoring and grading government agencies. For the Indonesian public, anti-corruption education has been introduced at all educational levels, and innovative campaigns have been undertaken, such as the “honesty shops”,where customers pay for what they get by simply depositing the appropriate amount in a box.

KPK has had its crises, including harassment and intimidation, interagency feuds, slashed budgets, and it is subject to the higher powers of the president and the parliament. But KPK has also built up a formidable base of public support. When it locked horns with the national police, thousands staged public demonstrations supporting KPK. When the parliament refused to allocate money for a much-needed KPK building, Indonesian citizens voluntarily donated money for the building construction. Now on its tenth year, KPK has become a symbol of reform and hope for Indonesians, and is hailed as one of the few effective anti-corruption agencies in the world.

In electing KOMISI PEMBERANTASAN KORUPSI to receive the 2013 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes its fiercely independent and successful campaign against corruption in Indonesia, combining the uncompromising prosecution of erring powerful officials with farsighted reforms in governance systems, and the educative promotion of vigilance, honesty and active citizenship among all Indonesians.

It is a great honor for me, standing here, on behalf of my institution, to receive this award. This moment is a declaration of our conviction to speak louder and harder: “We fight against corruption all the way until the end.” This award is a warning that we are at war based on a zero-sum principle. This is a signal to alert everybody: “No mercy, no forgiveness, zero tolerance, and justice must prevail.”

I receive this award not only for my institution, but for those who dedicate themselves to seek justice, to those who tirelessly work and risk themselves fighting against corruption. I say to them: you are all heroes of humanity. You are all saving human civilization. We cannot afford to allow our children’s future to be uncertain. Fighting against corruption is an effort to create a brighter future for our children.

Corruption is not merely about immorality and irregularity. It is about injustice, so, ladies and gentlemen, we just have to bring those perpetrators to justice. It is an injustice because small numbers of people, from their own greed, steal the portion that is meant for the many. Small numbers of people enrich themselves for their own selfish satisfaction and leave the rest in poverty. People sacrifice themselves, working so hard, day and night, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, only for survival. On the other hand, a few people do not sweat, but are earning unlimited amounts of income. Their unlimited income is unjustified income. This is injustice.

We are witnessing today so many children who cannot attend school because their parents cannot afford it. There are so many children on the streets, hoping on the mercy of others, if only for a spoonful of rice. It is an undeniable fact that there are so many people who die before their time because they cannot afford to survive. At the same time, there is a small number of people who live in luxury with unlimited resources. This is injustice. Those children enslave themselves at an early age because their opportunities have been taken away by those corrupt people. We at KPK judge these corrupt people thus: “They take not only the children’s opportunities, but they steal the children’s future.”

Mahatma Gandhi once said: “The earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”

The pillaging of Indonesia’s forests has been called one of the biggest environmental crimes in recent history. It is estimated that in the 1980s and 1990s, Indonesia lost 1.5 million hectares of forest each year due to rampant, illegal logging. Large-scale forest destruction resulted in serious loss of biodiversity, displacement of indigenous populations, and disasters like landslides and floods. Its impact went much further: deforestation made Indonesia the third largest contributor to greenhouse gases in the world. A problem of such epic proportions demands the response of governments, international bodies, and the broad population. But the response can also begin with the actions of individuals.

AMBROSIUS RUWINDRIJARTO, born in Central Java to a father who was a teacher-farmer and a mother who until now practices organic farming, grew up to enjoy and value his natural environment. As a student in Bogor Agricultural University, his passion for forest trekking and mountaineering led him and five schoolmates to bond with forest dwellers, and organize Telapak for small projects in wildlife protection and village self-help. But things turned much more serious and complex when the group started to confront the issue of illegal logging.

In 1999, partnering with the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which specializes in the investigation of environmental crimes, Telapak began undercover investigations of Indonesia’s logging concessions. Tracking the timber trade from source to market, the Telapak-EIA investigations uncovered the illicit, transnational operations of timber bosses, brokers, and smugglers, in cases involving billions of dollars and the trade in endangered hardwood species. This was dangerous work, as RUWI would personally experience when he and an EIA representative were forcibly detained in the premises of a timber company in central Kalimantan, physically assaulted, threatened with death, and pursued by a mob even after they had found refuge in a local police station. They were flown to safety under armed escort only after local and foreign authorities intervened. But this did not stop Telapak and EIA.

Their exposes on the how and who’s who in illegal logging and smuggling sparked public indignation and heightened pressures on Indonesia and other governments to tighten and enforce regulations on timber production and trade. Telapak went on to participate in framing laws and regulations on forest management and timber legality verification, and was part of negotiations for an Indonesia-EU treaty on the handling of the illegal timber trade. RUWI and his co-founders in Telapak did not only oppose and expose; they also proposed principled but pragmatic solutions. Telapak promoted sustainable, community-based logging and has created community logging cooperatives that legally and sustainably manage forests in more than 200,000 hectares of forest land, using an approach that does not only conserve forest wealth but also benefits the local communities instead of a few well-connected concessionaires and unscrupulous traders.

This approach echoes what RUWI developed from his four-year immersion in two coastal communities in Bali. Working directly with the fishers and villagers, RUWI and his Telapak colleagues led the destructive fishing reform by creating viable programs which reconciled conservation, coral reef restoration, and economic improvement. These villages have now become the model for other fishing villages in community-managed marine resource management.

After more than ten years, Telapak has grown into a 247-member organization engaged in social forestry, marine conservation, and indigenous people’s rights. It has initiated community logging cooperatives and social enterprises engaged in the ecologically-friendly production and marketing of forestry, fishery, and agricultural products. Its programs have had an impact in many of the thirty-three provinces of Indonesia.

This expansion owes in large part to RUWI’s leadership as Telapak’s executive director, and then its president. Pragmatic, hands-on, and action-oriented, he has infused the organization with his zeal and optimism. Even in the dark days of the anti-logging campaign, he would insist, “We are trying to find a hope, some light. We have to work hard to make it happen.”

In electing AMBROSIUS RUWINDRIJARTO to receive the 2012 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his sustained advocacy for community-based natural resource management in Indonesia, leading bold campaigns to stop illegal forest exploitation, as well as fresh social enterprise initiatives that engage the forest communities as their full partners.

This response is dedicated to all fellow members of society and friends for their sustained advocacy against ecological and humanity crimes, and their initiatives and leadership for a better world.

For EIA, Telapak and Samdhana, my organizations.

As with everything in life, there are two sides of our work that is recognized by you all tonight, oppose-expose-bad news, while also propose-create-produce-rejoice-good news.

On one side, we have good news that we now have working models of Indigenous Peoples and forest peoples who organize themselves into cooperatives that manage the forests and their livelihoods sustainably and financially profitably. They are the Koperasi Hutan Jaya Lestari in Southeast Sulawesi, Koperasi Wana Lestari Menoreh in Jogjakarta, and Koperasi Giri Mukti Wana Tirta in Lampung, to name the few pioneers. We have Les and Serangan coastal communities who are pioneers in quitting cyanide fishing and coral mining and became sustainable fishers and coral reef advocates.

But we are living in a world where Indigenous Peoples and their forests are in ever greater threat of destruction. Even as I am standing here before you people call me and report that their forest is being wiped out. A friend of mine, an Indigenous Peoples leader recently phoned me and said that he and his family have been living many days and nights in the forest, keeping guard of it. They will protect that forest, whatever it takes, with their machetes, sumpit, and self. Ain’t he reminded us of a great president? This might be just what President Ramon Magsaysay will do were he there in East Kalimantan?

This Muara Tae is the living example of all that is wrong and unjust with our environment, the pillaging of Indonesia’s forests, the biggest environmental crimes in the recent history of the world.

For me, the Ramon Magsaysay Award is not about my top performance and achievement. Rather we are being at the low, but as Ms. Abella said, I am an emergent leader, and we will be emerging upwards & onwards.

It is then with joy and confidence that I asked my colleagues at the Wana Lestari Menoreh Cooperative in Jogjalarta to manage the prize of this Award by developing and running a social investment facility. The funds will be put in a cooperative and dedicated to social security of many of our local leaders/activists and be used as a revolving fund for start-ups and emerging community/social enterprises.

For the people of Muara Tae and other Indigenous Peoples and forest peoples in Indonesia and Asia, this Award is a recognition and public statement that in fighting for their right to live and make decisions over their life, they are not alone.

Islamic education is perceived by many, often in ignorance, as narrowly traditionalist and even reactionary. What is ignored is that, over the past century, traditional Islamic schools have responded to modernizing influences in many positive ways. This is shown in Indonesia where such changes are of enormous consequence, Indonesia is not only the world’s largest Muslim country, it is one where over fifty thousand Islamic schools are a major stream of the national educational system.

A sterling example of a modern, socially-innovative Islamic school is Nurul Haramain Putri Narmada in West Lombok, a peripheral region where a conservative Islam is dominant and deforestation and poverty are a major challenge. A pesantren, the oldest type of school in Indonesia, Nurul Haramain was established in 1996 by a young, progressive Muslim cleric named HASANAIN JUAINI. The son of a religious teacher who ran a pesantren for boys, HASANAIN opened his own pesantren after completing his university studies.

Against a tradition that reserves education for boys, HASANAIN decided to open a girls’ school. Starting with fifty girls, he evolved a learner-centered program aimed at developing each student’s full potential. Now a pesantren of five hundred students and sixty teachers (half of them women), HASANAIN’s school offers a government-accredited five-year secondary education program. It is the first in Lombok to achieve 100 percent computer-based learning, where students are provided with personal computers and teaching assistants, even at night. While religion is at the core of its program, as in the traditional pesantren, the school is pluralist in orientation and stresses secular subjects like the sciences. Students are exposed to diverse learning opportunities, encouraged to think critically, and motivated to pursue higher studies. It is not surprising that the school ranks No. 9 nationwide in university entrance examinations. Yet HASANAIN says, “To be No. 9 is not the target, but how we have developed all the capabilities of the student.”

It is not just academic excellence that makes HASANAIN’s school a different kind of school. Responding to criticism that boarding schools are “ivory towers” isolated from society, HASANAIN has deliberately integrated school learning into the life of the community. While the pesantren is traditionally controlled by a single teacher, HASANAIN has built a model of community ownership through a membership system. Moreover, he has turned his school into an axis for community development. His integrated approach to education gets students and teachers involved in issues of environmental quality, livelihood enhancement, and good governance.

He initiated a social forestry project that involves the community in conserving the environment while increasing their household incomes. The project has successfully reforested a once-barren thirty-one hectare tract through a scheme in which families, motivated by a grant of livestock for short-term needs, are allotted a hectare each for them to plant, nurture, and eventually harvest trees according to a clear business plan. HASANAIN further believes that schools have a role in promoting citizen participation in local governance. Thus, he organized representatives from 130 pesantrens in his district into a Coalition of Pesantrens against Corruption, to lobby for reforms and hold public officials accountable. He has himself been a vocal advocate on issues pertaining to elections and the management of public funds. In his combined roles as cleric, teacher, community worker, and social entrepreneur, HASANAIN is a living example of the kind of education he preaches.

His modernizing innovations have been criticized by some. But for HASANAIN, there is no divide between teaching religion and calling public officials to account, or between running a school and getting the community to plant trees. One who teaches by his work and not just by his words, HASANAIN speaks of what he does in terms homely but wise: “Everything starts with a seed.” “Those who take must give. It’s a big sin if you take and not give.”

In electing HASANAIN JUAINI to receive the 2011 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his holistic, community-based approach to pesantren education in Indonesia, creatively promoting values of gender equality, religious harmony, environmental preservation, individual achievement, and civic engagement among young students and their communities.

Upon learning that I was selected for the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the first response that came to my mind was, “Oh, God! You just want me to work harder! Oh my God! I thought I have already reached the limit of what I could have contributed.”

But after seeing that other Magsaysay awardees, previous and present, have done much greater work to deserve this honor, I feel myself to be way behind them. The gap could be as far as the distance between the earth and the sky. Again, I asked myself, “What could this be?” Deep in my mind, I sincerely think that the late President Ramon Magsaysay, through the Award that he has inspired to exist, wants me to contribute more, following his footsteps in his patriotic struggles for the people of the world.

When at last the results of the Awards selection were to be officially announced, yet another question emerged: “Am I ready to accept this award?” My gratitude to Allah that I have not reached the point of insanity to refuse the award, even though I think I do not deserve it. By the way, I am thankful that this is a sweet “mistake.” I promise that I will work harder to reach, in the future, that level of contribution expected of a Magsaysay awardee.

The future promises new opportunities and requires renewed vigor. This award has strengthened and energized me to reach my goals. Together let us unite and mutually extend our help to the people of the world so that in this era of globalization, we will live in a spirit of brotherhood.

With this opportunity, I am urging everyone to set President Magsaysay’s dedication to the world as our example. To me, he is now present and whispering to me, “If I, after my death, can still do this noble work, why shouldn’t you, who are still alive, be able to do better?”

To my children in Pondok Pesantren Nurul Haramain Putri (Nurul Haramain Girls’ Islamic Boarding School) in Narmada as well as all female students in Indonesia, this award is for all of you. Keep struggling and prove to the world that without the contributions of women, the pillars of the world will collapse.

Terimah kasih.

It is a land of familiar ironies and contrasts. An archipelago of astounding natural wealth and one of the world’s fastest-rising economies, Indonesia is also a country where the environment is threatened and poverty is widespread. The government is aggressively expanding power generation capacity to feed the economy but 90 percent of installed capacity still depends on “dirty” fossil fuels and, even then, over a hundred million Indonesians, or half the nation’s population, are without electricity.

It is both a daunting problem and an exciting possibility, turning Indonesia’s vast reserves of sustainable energy into power, and at the same time releasing the dormant economic power of its rural population. This is the challenge that drives the life of TRI MUMPUNI.

Born in Semarang, Central Java, her father an economist, her mother a social worker, MUMPUNI developed a social conscience early in life, and, after earning a degree in social economics, immersed herself in rural development work. A turning point came in 1980 when she married Iskandar Kuntoadji, an engineer who in 1979 helped form Yayasan Mandiri, the first Indonesian nongovernment organization to promote hydropower technology for community development. Though the group was short-lived, Kuntoadji built considerable knowledge in hydropower technology. With his technical expertise and MUMPUNI’s social development commitment and entrepreneurial abilities, in 1993 the young couple formed People-Centered Business and Economic Institute, with the Indonesian acronym IBEKA, short for Institut Bisnis dan Ekonomi Kerakyatan. As a nongovernment organization, IBEKA committed itself to developing micro hydropower systems for impoverished rural communities.

This proved to be a daunting undertaking. As IBEKA’s leader, MUMPUNI had to struggle with restrictive state regulations, complex financing requirements, and the draining demands of social mobilization work. To meet the twin challenges of a social enterprise, remaining viable as a business without compromising its social mission’she had to focus all her energies on working at the level of the poorest communities, as well as with the highest government authorities. Operating deeply in the country’s remote regions had its grave dangers: in Aceh in 2008, MUMPUNI and her husband were kidnapped by former rebels, brought into the jungle, and forced to raise money from family and friends to ransom their freedom.

Skill, creativity, and determination, however, have turned IBEKA into an outstanding Indonesian example of social entrepreneurship, and cast MUMPUNI as a much-admired and influential leader in the field of community-based renewable energy. From its base in Subang, West Java, IBEKA has built sixty micro hydropower plants, with capacities ranging from 5 kilowatts to 250 kilowatts, providing electricity to half a million people in rural Indonesia. Equally important, it has done this through a community-based development approach that goes beyond the technology to the socioeconomic empowerment of communities. Putting a premium on community participation and ownership, IBEKA organizes electric cooperatives, trains villagers in technical management and resource conservation, and provides support in fund-facilitation and income-generating activities.

MUMPUNI works at the national level in promoting the role of hydropower in development, and in designing and implementing new models of government-business-community joint ventures in micro hydropower facilities. Boldly enterprising, she has effectively lobbied for changes in state policy that now allow independent micro hydropower plants to sell electricity to the government’s national grid. Despite what IBEKA has already accomplished, MUMPUNI knows that the task ahead remains formidable: there are still some twenty thousand villages without any electricity. But this is not just about technology and numbers. She says, “Electricity is not our main goal, but the potential to build villages that are economically empowered. This is my highest task.”

In electing TRI MUMPUNI to receive the 2011 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her determined and collaborative efforts to promote micro hydropower technology, catalyze needed policy changes, and ensure full community participation, in bringing electricity and the fruits of development to the rural areas of Indonesia.

I believe that poverty is not the problem of development; poverty is a symptom of the larger problem of local communities who are disconnected from the local resources surrounding them, that can contribute to their human well-being. We are now living in a world of great disconnectedness: this is apparent at so many different levels. Many people, especially the poor, carry a sense of inadequacy from being part of a system that sees them not for what they are, but as numbers and elements of some statistical ledger.

IBEKA was founded by my husband and I in the 1990s, to unify what was even then breaking apart and disconnected; IBEKA sought to change this by sharing the world the way it is meant to be shared. Community has to be reconnected to their local resources, and the technology used has to be brought closer to the community. Thus the idea of “Community-Based Electrical Power Supply” was born. I thank my dear husband Iskandar for pioneering the concept and serving as my inspiration. Also for the many sacrifices he has made over the years, in ensuring that our vision of personal happiness is continually augmented by our caring for others! He has always been by my side, showing that a deep spirit of love binds us in this magnificent enterprise of life.

I assert that, contrary to general belief, we live in a generous world of great abundance: alongside this belief is my conviction that eradicating poverty succeeds only if this natural abundance is shared, nurtured, and guarded. Furthermore, natural wealth is to be shared at the grassroots level; wealth cannot be created or sustained by “top-down” approaches. Through the construction of micro-hydro generation plants in isolated communities previously without electricity, IBEKA has shown that our approach can succeed. Now, we would like to broaden our approach by using other technologies that will allow for increased economic impact but still in a sustainable way.

IBEKA and our community partners are propagators of sound eco-management. We are also guardians. IBEKA seeks to ensure that every investment made will create tangible welfare at the community level: every rupiah we spend must be put to good use. That is why we create community institutions that assume responsibility for operation and maintenance of facilities, as well as ultimate ownership.

Economic productivity is the outcome of such community-driven designs. IBEKA offers different micro hydropower models: one is an isolated power-grid operated and maintained by the community for their community’s own electrification; the other model is where redundant energy can be sold back to the grid. Income generated from such sale is put to collective use for village development purposes, such as giving scholarships to poor families. The great beauty of both approaches is that the entire structure is consensus-based, not imposed from the outside!

I am deeply honored to be part of a lineage of Ramon Magsaysay award recipients that include people like Mother Theresa and Muhammad Yunus: champions of the frail and poor, They and other Magsaysay awardees have always intuitively understood that in order for us all to be happy, we need to bring together disparate pieces into a whole: they are holistic thinkers with a deep respect for the community, and for the individuals that make up these pockets of living cultures.

I would like to end with a warm thank-you to all my colleagues at IBEKA, without whose passion and commitment I would not be standing here today: so this award honors you, too, dear fellow travelers on this path of unification!

My deepest thank you to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for honoring us with this great prize: it is my heart-felt wish that all 1.8 billion people in the Asia-Pacific region will share equitably and fairly in our wonderful natural resources, and that all people everywhere have access to basic energy in the form of electricity at a fair and affordable price! My final wish is that we all become good stewards of our responsibilities, and inspire others to share all the good things of this world!