In Singapore, one of the world’s wealthiest economies, poverty is not as stark and visible as in much of the world, but it exists for ten percent of the country’s population of 5.7 million. It is a problem that can be statistically glossed over in ways that can dull human sympathies, foster moral complacency, and obscure the fact that in the end, poverty is not a matter of numbers but of real people needing other people’s help.

Singaporean TONY TAY was born into poverty. Abandoned by his father when he was five, homeless, his mother barely surviving on transient work, TONY and a sister were put in the care of an orphanage, while two other sisters stayed with a foster family. At twelve, TONY dropped out of school, had to find food where he could, and started working at odd jobs. By sheer grit and perseverance, he slowly pulled himself out of poverty, started a printing business; and finally had his own home, raising his own family in modest comfort.

In the Singaporean ethos of self-reliance, he could have easily put the past behind him. And he did, until he was fifty-seven when, at his mother’s funeral, he was deeply moved by the great number of people who came to give their respects to his mother. Despite her own difficulties, she had devoted herself to charity work with the Canossian Sisters. Inspired, TONY and his wife began their share of doing good for others—collecting unsold bread and vegetables from the market and bringing these to the Canossian convent to be given to the needy. Enlisting family and friends, they began to cook what they had gathered in their home kitchen, delivering packed meals to the poor and elderly.

Their “one hot meal revolution” had begun. In 2003, TONY organized “Willing Hearts,” a fully volunteer-based, non-profit organization that distributes hot, packed meals daily to the needy. Starting with just eleven volunteers and distributing three hundred meals daily, Willing Hearts now cooks six thousand meals every day, which are delivered to forty distribution points in Singapore. It operates 365 days a year and has some three hundred regular volunteers, operating out of a facility in a public community center. Their beneficiaries are neglected and abandoned elderly and persons with disabilities, the sick, children of single-parent households, low-income families, and migrant workers.

Supported with donations in cash but mostly in kind, its facility operates daily from 4:30 AM to 3:30 PM as volunteers collect, prepare, cook, pack, and deliver meals in a systematic cycle of work that respects the people they serve by seeing to the quality and quantity of the food, observing food safety, and segregating Muslim and non-Muslim meals. Willing Hearts has not missed a single day of food-giving since it started fourteen years ago.

Willing Hearts has extended its services to optical and dental care, “So people can better enjoy their food,” TONY says, expressing a typically Singaporean love for food. But it is not just about food. What gratifies TONY is how the simple sharing of food has fostered the spirit of volunteerism: taxi drivers have volunteered to deliver food packs; parents bring their children to the group’s kitchen to help; volunteers and their families are nurtured by their Willing Hearts experience in the virtues of service, empathy, and kindness.

Today, TONY participates in all aspects of the work, all day every day. He has no grand vision of what he is doing, except that people must love one another and that “God will provide.” He often speaks of Willing Hearts as a way of being part of one family, one village—a poignant statement from one who did not have much of a family growing up. He says: “We are just sharing, sharing all that we have in life to make a better society.”

In electing TONY TAY to receive the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his quiet, abiding dedication to a simple act of kindness—sharing food with others—and his inspiring influence in enlarging this simple kindness into a collective, inclusive, vibrant volunteer movement that is nurturing the lives of many in Singapore.

Thank you for the award. It is a great honor.

Willing Hearts started with one word—yes. Yes to the Canossian sisters to help them collect extra bread that were not sold for the day from a bakery. Yes to distribute the rest of the bread to those who needed it. Yes to collect the extra vegetables from the wholesalers. Yes to my wife when she asked to cook for the elderly who couldn not cook for themselves. Yes to all who asked for help along the way.

And along the way, I asked for help and many said, “yes,” so Willing Hearts is a journey of many who said, “yes” to those in need.

I never thought that our work would grow so big. There were no big plans when we started. There are no big plans now. There are no big plans for the future. Just one plan: God’s plan.

There are many people to thank. I would like to thank and offer this award:

• To God: the honor and glory belongs to God for making all things possible. He has given me the strength and the courage to keep Willing Hearts going. Without God’s blessing, we would be nowhere.
• To my late mother: for being the model and the spirit behind Willing Hearts.
• To my wife: for being the pillar of support in my journey. As they say, “Behind every successful man, there is a woman.” Thank you for always being there, Mary!
• To the donors, supporters, and volunteers: for believing and supporting Willing Hearts since day one, and for being there 365 days a year, to help the needy all these years.

Lastly, thank you to everybody here for sharing this honor. I salute and give my best wishes to the other award winners.

Most of Asia’s democratically oriented countries are burdened with values borrowed from affluent societies in the West and Japan. Concerned with liberty, they also emphasize egalitarianism and welfare state concepts. Yet at this stage these developing countries usually lack adequate economic productivity to afford such programs. Recognizing this quandary, GOH KENG SWEE treats with iconoclastic courage and skepticism “all books on economics published since World War II.” Instead, he emphasizes that in developing countries no amount of foreign loans can compensate for cultivation of those virtues propounded by that 19th century Scottish essayist, Samuel Smiles: “thrift, industry, ambition, honesty, perseverance.”

The thinker who helped Singapore’s Peoples Action Party (PAP) make of these hard necessities a compelling political program was born 54 years ago in Malacca. A career civil servant for much of two decades, he also took time out to earn a doctorate at the London School of Economics. In 1958 he resigned from government service to join in building the PAP. The next year, when the PAP won the general election and control of the Singapore Government, GOH was elected a member of parliament and named Minister of Finance.

As keeper of the public purse, GOH’s task was unenviable; government finances were in a sorry state, reflecting dwindling trade and rising unemployment. By austere economics, including salary cuts for ministers and civil servants alike, he balanced the budget within the first year. From such savings were mustered funds to initiate, in 1960, Singapore’s massive public housing, expansion of education, construction of community centers and the start of the industrialization spurred by the new Economic Development Board.

Despite such dedicated leadership, Singapore’s survival was repeatedly threatened. Local leftists collaborated with Indonesia’s late President Sukarno in his konfrontasi to sabotage and militarily destroy the Federation of Malaysia that Singapore joined in founding in 1963. Separation from the Federation in 1965 left Singapore precariously isolated; a vulnerability compounded by the drastic reduction in Britain’s defense forces and expenditures “east of Suez.”

Throughout these vicissitudes, GOH, alternately Defense and Finance Minister, worked with rising young, government technocrats to realize the national dream of an industrialized, trading city-state. Jurong Town Corporation symbolizes this new Singapore. Covering 17,000 acres, it is being reclaimed from mangrove swamp, hills and prawn ponds. Already completed are a deepwater port and town pier, a railway, and roads and services—including water, drainage and electricity—for the rapidly rising factories and apartments. Also included are a 50-acre bird park, a town center with a 700-acre recreation area containing Chinese and Japanese gardens of world class, restaurants and other popular attractions.

With full employment and over one billion U.S. dollars in foreign reserves, Singapore’s economy continues to burgeon. Orchids and ornamental fish are airfreighted to Europe and Japan, large-scale poultry and swine growing now are complemented by hydroponic gardening, while the world’s supertankers are refitted nearby and industrial exports become more sophisticated. All are visible proof of a philosopher-official’s sound planning.

In electing GOH KENG SWEE to receive the 1972 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes him as chief economic architect in transforming Singapore during the 1960s into Southeast Asia’s most industrially and socially vibrant state, where all benefit from prosperity.

There is reputed to be an old and wise Chinese proverb which says, “we cannot help the birds of sadness flying over our heads, but we need not let them build their nests in our hair.” Tender and subtle as the saying may be, its message is clear and relevant. It calls upon us to ensure that our minds are not submerged in pessimism in the face of the arduous task of development. At the same time it acts as a little expression of hope that we must carry with us as we pace our way through what Professor Gunnar Myrdal has aptly called “the Asian Drama.”

The hope that we carry with us must, however, be based on a solid commitment: a commitment to build a just, equal and prosperous society for all of us. It has been my belief that there are no easy solutions to the numerous problems that all of us encounter in the developing world. As I have said on previous occasions, and as the Board of Trustees of this Award have kindly reminded me, the virtues that we need to cultivate in ourselves are the simple virtues propounded by the 19th century Scottish essayist, Samuel Smiles: “thrift, industry, ambition, honesty and perseverance.” Simple as they may be, they can form the bedrock for a consolidated national effort. I hope that I am not being too bold if I say that Ramon Magsaysay’s life in many ways portrayed these simple and yet enduring qualities.

Carlos P. Romulo, in his inspiring biography of Ramon Magsaysay, said that from his village Magsaysay carried his native earthiness, deep-seated honesty, capacity for hard work, and disarmingly naive sense of country humor into the highest office of the land. Out of these simple qualities Ramon Magsaysay created a life of dedication and devotion to the task of nation-building that will long be a rich source of inspiration for many of us in Asia. To receive an award in the name of such a man is indeed a great honor.

In all fairness I must share this honor with colleagues of mine, all of whom have tried to encourage and emulate the qualities of dedication and devotion that Ramon Magsaysay has inspired.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award will also undoubtedly spur all of us in Singapore toward our aim of bringing about a more just and equal society, wherein every citizen will have the right to live in liberty and happiness and be given equal opportunities and education for a better life. The recipients of the Ramon Magsaysay Award over the last 14 years have come from various parts of Asia and the world.

The Award weaves a common theme into the various endeavors of government and community leaders, teachers and social workers, journalists and artists, all of whom are striving in their own way to make this world a better place to live in. By spreading the name and spirit of Ramon Magsaysay over the world, the Board of Trustees is making a valuable contribution to understanding between nations of Southeast Asia.

It is my hope that the Award will continue to symbolize the ideals that Ramon Magsaysay exemplified and act as a beacon of hope for the developing world as well as promote a spirit of international understanding.

Throughout Asia few problems are more acute than those created by people flocking to cities unprepared to accept the influx. The slums that usually result are a blot upon any civilized society and make a mockery of popular aspirations for a better way of life. 

This dilemma has been resolved in Singapore in a manner that provides a model for much of the world. Completing construction of one new apartment every 45 minutes, on the average, at a cost of less than US$3.00 per square foot, the government can offer every applicant a new home within three days. These apartments, renting for US$7.00 to US$20.00 per month, offer kitchens, baths, electricity, gas, water and elevators. Erected in blocks rising up to 16 storeys, they are grouped into new communities complete with stores, social centers, schools, recreation facilities and delightful landscaping. 

As the person primarily responsible for this achievement, LIM KIM SAN became Chairman of the Housing and Development Board of the Singapore Government in 1960, and in 1963 was named Minister of National Development. Upon assuming office five years ago, he reorganized an earlier halting effort at government-assisted housing, applying quietly and carefully a businessman’s energetic pragmatism to the construction industry. Private contractors were encouraged to participate to the maximum, while their profits were kept reasonable and costs of materials were stabilized. Economic activity and employment generated by the building of some 60,000 apartments has been a major element in Singapore’s growing prosperity. 

Reclamation and construction of facilities for carefully designed industrial estates and satellite cities now promise that Singapore can “digest,” in a healthy environment, a population expected to reach two million within another 18 months. While continuing to expand government housing for the less fortunate citizens, LIM recently initiated the first major urban redevelopment program in Asia to transform the old port city into a modern metropolis. Private initiative and investment is being fostered to build apartments for middle-class and wealthier families as part of a harmonious commercial-residential complex on the 22 square mile island state. 

Alert to human needs, LIM and the government of which he is a part are broadening the base of private ownership by selling government-built apartments to individual families on easy terms. Meanwhile, occupants are learning to maintain clean premises, properly dispose of garbage, and otherwise to be considerate of their neighbors. Furnishings and household appliances, both tasteful and inexpensive, have been made available by enlisting competitive participation by architects and manufacturers. The community life that is developing in the glistening, well-managed blocks of flats that have replaced squalid, over-crowded shacks testifies to the concern and probity of the leaders who made this possible. 

In electing LIM KIM SAN to receive the 1965 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the Board of Trustees recognizes his marshalling of talents and resources to provide one-fifth of Singapore’s burgeoning population with decent, moderately-priced housing amidst attractive surroundings.

There is a saying in Malay, the national language of my country, which goes like this: “Lembu punya minyak sapi punya nama.” Translated, it means “The oil is from the cow but the buffalo gets the credit.” So it is with me here today. The great honor which has been conferred on me should rightly belong to the group of young, very dedicated, dynamic and unselfish men and women of my country who, by their hard work, foresight and devotion to duty, have made it possible for Singapore to complete successfully its first five-year low-cost housing program. 

It was my good fortune and privilege to be in a position to give them the opportunity to prove their worth, and the 1965 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership to me is actually a tribute to the young officers who worked with me and discharged well the responsibility that was assigned to them. This Award will undoubtedly spur all of us in Singapore towards fulfilling our aim of bringing about a more just and equal society, wherein every citizen will have the right to live in liberty and happiness and be given equal opportunity and expectation of a better life. 

Those of us who have emerged from colonial rule to become free and independent nations sometimes do not have enough confidence in the capacity and ability of our own people. My own rather limited experience in the last few years has convinced me that solutions to the problem of nation building lie mainly in our own hands. Reliance on foreign expert advice will bring us far, but not far enough to satisfy the aspirations and desires of our people. The hard and often tiresome work must be done by us and us alone. For it is only the citizens of the country who can get the feel of the situation which is essential in the solution of any vexatious problem. Singapore’s Housing and Development Board has only one expatriate officer among a staff of more than 800 monthly paid, and I hope that its record in the field of low-cost housing will convince other emerging countries that there are young men and women among their citizens who, given the opportunity, will show that they not only have the dedication, the determination and the will, but also the capacity and ability to solve their own problems, difficult though they may be. 

The Ramon Magsaysay Award, founded in memory of an outstanding leader of our time, keeps alive the spirit of international brotherhood. The high principles for which your great president lived, worked and died are continued, for, in making the Award, the Trustees have shown a spirit which transcends national boundaries and have made no distinction of race and creed. It is a beacon for the future of mankind and, if the spirit spreads, and spread it must, we can look forward confidently to the time when freedom can be enjoyed by all and man can live with man in honor and peace.