Standing on the eastern edge of the Himalayas, the Kingdom of Bhutan has been described as the last Shangri-la. Its relative seclusion and natural beauty make it one of the world’s most desirable places for tourists to visit. But Bhutan is a low-income country facing many of the same problems and challenges confronting other developing countries: unemployment, inadequate social services, and the erosion of traditional values.

Despite being famous for Gross National Happiness, a holistic development philosophy which gained traction in some countries, Bhutan continues to face many challenges. About 12% of its population live below the poverty line and many youths are seeking greener pastures abroad. With rapid change taking place due to modernization and globalization, Bhutan has been experiencing serious tensions.

This reality has been foremost in the mind of KARMA PHUNTSHO, a Bhutanese thought leader who, as a former Buddhist monk, has a profound understanding of Bhutanese tradition. But PHUNTSHO—born in Bhutan in 1968—is also an Oxford-educated scholar who feels the need to bring Bhutan into the 21st century in a mindful and culturally sensitive way. His academic works in the field of Buddhism and Bhutan’s history and culture focus on reappropriating Bhutanese traditional knowledge and making them relevant to the present and future.

In addition to numerous academic publications on history, religion, and culture including his groundbreaking History of Bhutan, he regularly writes and speaks in mainstream national media as well as on social media on social and cultural issues. He is a leading member of the fledgling Bhutanese academic community and his village solidarity group. For the past twenty years, he has returned to his village in Central Bhutan annually to help put on the Yakchoe Festival, which is today attended by some 500 international tourists.

In 1999, PHUNTSHO founded the Loden Foundation, an educational charity “committed to promoting education, nurturing social entrepreneurship, and documenting Bhutan’s cultural heritage and traditions.” The works of Loden Foundation mirror PHUNTSHO’s own aspirations and interests as a scholar and changemaker. Loden literally means “possessing intelligence,” but it is grounded in the Buddhist belief that knowledge has no owner, and that empowerment through education is the greatest gift.

Begun as a scheme to support poor but deserving students in Bhutan, the foundation is registered as a civil society organization with partners in many countries. Until 2008, when the first staff was hired, the foundation was entirely operated by PHUNTSHO and other volunteers. Headquartered in the capital Thimphu, Loden Foundation has projects in all twenty administrative districts of Bhutan.

Loden’s accomplishments have been impressive and life-changing. In education, it has established five preschools, funded 219 students through school, awarded ninety-eight college scholarships, and held sixty-three Bhutan Dialogue Sessions for public education. In entrepreneurship, Loden has addressed the problem of youth unemployment in Bhutan by helping them to become social entrepreneurs through loans, mentorship, and capacity-building.

Veering away from traditional business approaches, Loden emphasizes social value over profit, and responsible and ethical business practices hoping to foster a caring economy and a culture of responsible production and intelligent consumption. The program has funded 295 entrepreneurs (ninety-seven of whom are women) creating 860 jobs, with 5,750 more aspiring entrepreneurs trained since 2008.

Acutely aware of the need to preserve and promote Bhutan’s rich cultural traditions, Loden has focused on documenting and digitizing its oral and written heritage. This has so far resulted in 3,348 hours of recordings of intangible culture, 4.55 million pages of digital texts from seventy-six libraries, 150,000 pictures of old art and artifacts, and sixty-one culture projects.

While these were achieved through collective effort, none would have been possible without the personal vision and dedication of PHUNTSHO, whose thoughts, words and actions guide these programs. Calling himself a “pracademic”—he practices what he preaches as an exemplar of humility, responsibility, and commitment, while nurturing young new leaders to take over from him.

As modern as his outlook is, his vision continues to be informed by his deep spirituality. “We really need to have this focus on the mind, the primary ingredient of happiness, because as soon as you start to think happiness is out there, then we will end up being more materialistic, just like others, and lose that traditional approach,” he says. “With so much distraction and confusion caused by the digital revolution, there is today even a greater need for such inward reflection and focus. That’s why Buddhist culture is so important for the future of Bhutan.” One of his current projects is establishing the Bodhitse Center for Study and Contemplation, using his own resources.

In electing KARMA PHUNTSHO to receive the 2024 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his invaluable and enduring contributions towards harmonizing the richness of his country’s past with the diverse predicaments and prospects of its present, inspiring young Bhutanese to be proud of their heritage and confident in their future. Beyond his immediate horizon, his work engages all peoples and cultures around the world facing the same challenges, reminding them to look back even as they move forward.

The Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, my fellow Ramon Magsaysay Awardees, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Kuzuzangpola. I bring you greetings from the King and people of Bhutan, (prayer flags from Bhutan to highlight the backdrop you have chosen for this year.)

I am deeply humbled to be one of the recipients of Ramon Magsaysay Award this year and to be the first one from Bhutan. Yes, I have done voluntary charity work for 25 years, but I did not even dream of receiving such an honor.

Bhutan is a small country, with a population of about 770,000 people. So, in numbers what we do is tiny compared to the great works carried out by other Magsaysay Laureates in bigger countries. Thus, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my fellow Magsaysay Laureates both past and present, and sincerest gratitude to the Foundation for the recognition of their works.

What Bhutan lacks in numbers and size, we try to make up in inner spirit and sense. Bhutan was one of the last nations to start the process of modernization. It has seen its first streets and cars only some sixty years ago. Yet Bhutan has been bold in charting a new trajectory of development and human progress by balancing tradition with modernity, economic development with environment conservation, and material comfort with spiritual wellbeing. It pursues a holistic goal of Gross National Happiness.

Bhutan may not be the happiest place on earth, as some travel publicity material may have you believe. It has only last year graduated from Least Developed Country category and is grappling with its share of problems. But it is the first carbon negative country with a constitutional commitment to keep 60% of the country under forest cover for perpetuity. We have made serious efforts to pursue human wellbeing in its totality.

In this regard, I see this award as token of recognition of Bhutan’s pursuit of holistic development under the visionary leadership of Their Majesties. I take this also as an appreciation of work of the civil society organizations in Bhutan. More specifically, I would like to dedicate this to hundreds of friends who have joined me in the non-profit projects I have been involved in, the primary one being the Loden Foundation and its three programmes of supporting education, its social ‘Buddhist’ entrepreneurship programme to promote an intelligent business culture of responsible production and mindful consumption, and its culture programme to preserve and promote Bhutan’s traditional practice of wisdom and compassion.

I am joined here by my colleague Sangay Tshering, once a beneficiary of Loden and now the President of Loden in Bhutan, Kinley our communications officer, and Anne and Gerard Tardy, active members and supporters of Loden and friends from France.

Friends, humanity today is going the most alarming pace of change. Our species, homo sapiens, has been around for over 300,000 years but the industrial revolution in the last 300 years has fundamentally changed human existence.

Today, the digital revolution, which is only about 30 years old, is again transforming our way of life. We talk about advances in artificial intelligence, but human intelligence remains fickle and confused as never before. We face multiple challenges of climate change, war, rising inequality, rampant stress and restlessness.

The primary cause of today’s problems is not out there in nature or the material world but here in us—in human greed, hatred and ignorance. The solution to these problems also primarily lies in the human mind, in our understanding of the interdependence and interconnectedness, in empathy and compassion, in courage and resilience, in acumen and wisdom, and in selfless service and greatness of spirit—the ideals and values Ramon Magsaysay Award celebrates.

Through my work in culture and efforts to make our cultural values and practices relevant to our present time, I have come to believe that our ancient wisdom traditions have much to offer us today as they did in the past. Looking back can help us find a new and better way forward. A person who does not remember where he came from will never reach his destination, as those of you familiar with the Filipino proverb would know.

Let me conclude with a prayer that epitomizes the highest human ideal and is fitting for the occasion.

“As long as space exists
So long as sentient beings remain,
May I too remain
To dispel the misery of the world.”

Mass poverty is an intractable reality in Pakistan and much of the world. Poverty reduction programs are urgently needed and microfinance institutions are a real lifeline for the poor. Yet, though Pakistan is in a region that is a global center of the microfinance movement, about fifty million Pakistanis still live below the national poverty line. Clearly, much more work remains to be done.

One organization and its founder are breaking fresh ground in the fight against poverty. MUHAMMAD AMJAD SAQIB, sixty-four years old and highly educated, has worked as a consultant on social development for Pakistan’s government and international development organizations. In 2001, SAQIB invited a group of friends (all successful professionals and businessmen) to present to them his plan for a first-of-its-kind interest-free microfinance program, offering to design, organize, and implement it. Enthusiastic, his friends pledged their support, and funds were raised to capitalize the project. Two years later, Akhuwat was formed and its first branch opened in Lahore.

The most interesting aspect of Akhuwat is its concept and philosophy. Akhuwat (brotherhood or sisterhood) is an approach to poverty alleviation that SAQIB introduced based on the values of the Islamic tradition of Mawakhat that has for its core the Prophet Mohammed’s teaching: that if one has a loaf of bread, half of it rightly belongs to a person who has none. Related to this is the idea that charging interest (riba) on a loan is un-Islamic, hence the practice of the “benevolent loan” which, SAQIB reminds us, was already there in early human societies. “We just institutionalized it,” SAQIB says. Akhuwat uses places of worship for loan disbursements, saving on costs and instilling the sense of trust, responsibility and community that a mosque, church, or temple creates. It also promotes volunteerism among staff and clients; aims at transforming borrowers into donors; and fosters diversity and inclusion, serving all—irrespective of religion, caste, color, and gender.

All these have proved to be a winning formula. Today, Akhuwat is the largest microfinance institution in Pakistan, offering a package of loans for the poor. It has distributed 4.8 million interest-free loans amounting to the equivalent of USD900 million, helping three million families, with a remarkable 99.9% loan repayment rate.

Its phenomenal growth has fueled Akhuwat’s social support programs in fields like education, where, in partnerships with government and others, Akhuwat has “adopted” hundreds of neglected and non-functioning public schools and established four residential colleges (one of them for women), and soon a university, for poor and deserving students.   Akhuwat runs a health services program, helping hundreds of thousands of patients; a “clothes bank” that has distributed more than three million clothes for the needy; and a program of economic, health, and psycho-social services for the discriminated khwaja sira (transgender) community. In the Covid-19 pandemic, Akhuwat responded with emergency loans and grants, food relief, and other assistance in over a hundred cities in Pakistan.

People were skeptical about the sustainability of a no-interest, no-collateral loan program (one that only asks a borrower for a USD1.26 application fee and an optional mutual support contribution of 1.0% of the loan amount). SAQIB is not worried. The Prophet’s story of the loaf of bread, the call for empathy and solidarity, has inspired him and stirred many donors to help. SAQIB has succeeded not only because of his expertise in this field but because he embraced the work of helping the poor as a call to faith. Empathy and optimism in human goodness are central to his work. He says: “Akhuwat is a philosophy. It is now a mission of millions. Until a poverty-free society has been created, we won’t let go. As long as there is an element of good and empathy in society, Akhuwat will continue.”

In electing MUHAMMAD AMJAD SAQIB to receive the 2021 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes the intelligence and compassion that enabled him to create the largest microfinance institution in Pakistan; his inspiring belief that human goodness and solidarity will find ways to eradicate poverty; and his determination to stay with a mission that has already helped millions of Pakistani families.

1963, Akhtar Hameed Khan. 1992, Sultan Shoaib Khan.  And now in 2021, I have joined my mentors and fellow countrymen in receiving Asia’s most prestigious award. I am truly humbled.

I am no more than a torchbearer of a flame ignited by them. Today, I take pride in walking along the path they have laid. There could be no greater honor. When an award is passed from teacher to student, it is no longer the recognition of an individual’s efforts but the validation of a concept and a legacy.

Awards like this have special significance. They are not what you receive for an uphill task of climbing to the pinnacle but instead, they are received for working on the ground and taking pride in the collective rise. This is an award that does not set you apart but unifies you with humankind. That for me is the epitome of Akhuwat, the brotherhood of mankind, my entire life’s work and passion.

I started my career in the civil service of Pakistan and later parted ways but in hindsight, it equipped me for the journey ahead. My work itself is neither new, nor innovative, and I learned from no other than the teacher of all Muslims, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He (PBUH) laid the foundation for the eradication of poverty through the message of Mawakhat or solidarity, whereby one household gives part of its possessions to one that has nothing, one neighborhood takes care of the financial hardships of another, and one community accepts the responsibility to build one that has fallen.

This is a simple yet profound formula for the equitable distribution of wealth. With this comes hand in hand the concept of small loans free from interest and service charges, in the tradition of the Prophet (PBUH) and in fact all religions. The world is now beginning to realize the grave reality of rising interest rates that are bringing the world economy to its knees and sending individuals and nations into spiraling debt. Economists have long tried to resolve the issue of world poverty. But let me remind you of one such solution that was given 1400 years ago. We at Akhuwat, have only reiterated the same methodology of Mawakhat and interest and collateral-free microfinance and with it the intrinsic belief in the goodness of humankind.

I am privileged to declare that Akhuwat has received the greatest support from the people of Pakistan. Equally, the Government of Pakistan has committed to the eradication of poverty and equitable growth for all. Our beneficiaries are our supporters, our successors, and our friends. They are the most trustworthy, and dedicated individuals who despite the impediments they face, remind us to stay resilient in the face of adversity.

I would like to express my humble gratitude to Akhuwat’s Board of Directors for their unwavering support and commitment towards our collective vision of creating a poverty-free world. I thank my friends, each and every one of our donors for taking Akhuwat to a global level and helping us to establish the world’s largest interest-free microfinance program.

Skeptics always said such programs are not sustainable. Yes, these are not sustainable but by the grace of God and the spirit of sacrifice & giving, programs like Akhuwat stood where economic wisdom ends as these programs don’t believe in “my share” or “cut-throat” competition. They believe in sharing and altruism. The spirit of giving is pervasive.

I would not be standing before you if it was not for the employees and volunteers of Akhuwat working selflessly in 400 cities across Pakistan. I wish to thank all of you for your dedication, your commitment, and above all your faith when many would ridicule the concept of interest-free microfinance. You believed when others doubted. Turning a fool’s dream into a pragmatic reality. I thank the Akhuwat family which never breached our trust and made possible an unbelievable 100% rate of return that to date puzzles the economic pundits.

When you take on a family as large as Akhuwat, you cannot help but at times sacrifice the moments you could be spending with your own family. My wife, Farrukh, and my children Junaid, and Farazeen – it has been your continuous love that has given me the strength that I needed to carry forward this mission. It was your support and fortitude that have given me the inner peace to take on the turmoil outside. Thank you for sharing the weight on my shoulders by always standing by my side.

My heartfelt gratitude to the trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. It is my pledge on behalf of Pakistan, that we will continue our struggle till we reach our goal of a peaceful and poverty-free world.

To conclude, I would like to remember the man in whose honor we all are gathered here, the incomparable Ramon Magsaysay who said that a country is like a pyramid, like a tower. It is made up of millions of stones and the foundation stone of this pyramid is the common man.

Ladies and gentlemen, today, with immense appreciation I accept this Award on behalf of every foundation stone, on behalf of the common man and woman whose commitment and faith in goodness, piety, and in a prosperous future remains unshaken. I am grateful to be a part of the Magsaysay community, creating new bonds of solidarity with friends from Asia.

I believe the solution for poverty will be achieved by working in solidarity with the poor. Poverty is pain. Poverty is poison. We all remain poor until every single person in this world is poor. Let’s rise. Together, we will instill hope and become a voice for the voiceless.

For Timor Leste, centuries of colonial rule and decades of bitter civil strife have killed a third of the country’s population in its struggle to be a free and independent nation. It remains a fragile state, burdened by political dissension, violence, a weak economy, and widespread poverty.  This is a situation in which the work of civil society and ordinary citizens is urgent and invaluable.

MARIA DE LOURDES MARTINS CRUZ, widely known as MANA LOU,was born one of seven children of a well-to-do coffee planter in Liquica, Timor Leste.  Displaying an affinity for religious work as a child, she studied at a Jesuit institute in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where she was exposed to the liberation theology of Gustavo Gutierrez and the pedagogy of Paulo Freire.  She then joined the Canossian Sisters congregation, but left before taking her final vows when she discerned that her personal vocation lay outside the convent walls.

In 1989, she founded Instituto Seculare Maun Alin Iha Kristu (ISMAIK), or Secular Institute of Brothers and Sisters in Christ, a lay institute of men and women dedicated to uplifting the poorest of the poor through projects in health care, education, farming, animal husbandry, and other self-help initiatives. MANA LOU carried out her work in the midst of Timor Leste’s tumultuous transition to independence in 2002,  when the Indonesian army occupied the country and fierce fighting broke out between pro-Indonesia and pro-independence Timorese militias.  Boldly crossing battle lines, she talked to Indonesian soldiers, warring militias, and refugees, spreading, by force of her spirit of solidarity, a gospel of love and peace.  She built a refuge in her father’s coffee estate in Dare, in the hills above Dili; in time this refuge would include a school for girls, orphanages, a home for the sick, and a place where people of opposing faiths and politics could find safety and peace.

From this beginning, ISMAIK has expanded to more than ten such houses across the country.  Called “schools of life” and led by ISMAIK members and volunteers, these houses serve, according to need, as centers for moral and spiritual formation, skills and livelihood training, care centers for tuberculosis patients and children with disabilities, and hubs for community participation.  In partnership with an American doctor, MANA LOU also established Bairo-Ata Clinic, a large, free clinic for the poor that averages 300 patients daily and is the nation’s largest provider of tuberculosis treatment.

Typically, however, ISMAIK’s initiatives are small-scale, needs-based, person-to-person, and practical.  They put the premium on values of self-reliance, the use of locally available resources such as the promotion of herbal medicine and food gardens, mutual help in projects such like labor-pooling for house construction,  and moral and spiritual formation.  MANA LOU says, “We see that Jesus was very simple.  He was impassioned, always ready to do something, ready to act.” “Hence,” she says, “people should take control: if a road needs fixing, we fix it; if someone needs help in farm work, we help.”

Transcending the ethnic, religious, and political divisions in Timorese society, MANA LOU is animated not only by her faith, but also by her love for her people and her conviction that building independent, productive, and ethical persons is fundamental in her country, where a sense of national identity and civic consciousness are as yet undeveloped. “Ours is a new nation,” she says. “It will need people to have a heart big enough to love and bodies prepared to do hard work.”

In electing MARIA DE LOURDES MARTINS CRUZ to receive the 2018 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her pure humanitarianism in uplifting Timor Leste’s poor, her courageous pursuit of social justice and peace, and her nurturing the development of autonomous, self-reliant, caring citizens, so vital in new, post-conflict nations in the world.

Greetings of peace, solidarity and fraternity to all! My honour and gratitude to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for selecting me to receive this award. I thank you, President Abella, and your team for your support. I was full of dreams growing up in a small village, blessed by family and nature in a coffee plantation. All those dreams were destroyed by war; war kills people in ways worse than animals. I started to revolt when I became a victim. But God led me to a different path.

During my retreat, I asked Him what should I do? In the stillness of Jesus’ suffering image, I heard a voice say: Why do you search for Me in the convent? You see, I suffered a lot in a remote area with poor, disadvantaged, illiterate and suffering people. They don’t have any support. I really need your help! This is the real secret of my life’s vocation.

Returning to East Timor after my studies, I was motivated to work, physically and spiritually, to establish IS-MAIK to serve the poor, even if I began with no funds.

It is not easy to find volunteers to solve social problems in rural areas. So we established branches with like-minded groups, places to empower poor and disadvantaged people like the youth, teach them the realities of life and educate them. We started schools for life, where people learn in a practical way and live with nature; in the process, they developed beliefs that made them work together to transform society. It is like building a house carefully one brick at a time.

We listen to poor people’s voices in times of difficulty and conflict. A genuine concern for the poor and marginalized motivated members and the IS-MAIK family, in a chaotic situation, to be unafraid to take risks, organize teams to bring people to safety and peace. We worked with the police, military and militias, and the international community so that they show respect for human rights. With support from civil and military authorities, IS-MAIK cared for refugees or displaced people to feel safe and respect life. We fed them, gave medical assistance to those in need and protection to those in danger or were “suspects”. We listened to those who experienced violence, helped them settle down with prayers and reflection. This is the work IS-MAIK had done, especially before the 1999 referendum.

With Dr. Daniel Murphy, IS-MAIK established Bairo Pite clinic in September 1999. We treat people using herbal and natural medicine until help from the international community and emergency teams arrive. This was the first clinic to respond to all emergency situations after the conflict, with the dedication and hard work of Dr. Dan and his staff. IS-MAIK intends to continue the clinic’s work, help people with tuberculosis, and children and mothers who lack nutrition. This IS-MAIK offers to the nation as part of its contribution to build a caring society.

I could not have done all the work and mission without the support of all my brothers and sisters. I cannot mention everyone by name—all your names are written in my heart, and I carry you on my shoulders. Our work and mission is not yet finished; there is still plenty to do, I continue to count on you all, so please come and help! God blessed you all.

Vietnam is one of the fastest rising economies in Southeast Asia. As in other newly-emergent economies, social services have sadly not kept pace with impressive economic growth. A social concern that is inadequately addressed involves the rights of persons with disabilities (PWDs). In recent years, government has enacted legislation for PWD protection and support services but the implementation gap remains huge for the estimated 13 million PWDs in the country. In such a situation, the action of citizens is vital, and where civil society is weak, as in Vietnam, the leadership of gifted, dedicated individuals is especially crucial.

VO THI HOANG YEN, born and raised in a remote village in Vietnam’s Dong Nai province, contracted polio when she was two-and-a-half years old. In many other cases, particularly in the rural areas, this condition would have consigned her to a life of dependence. But with a supportive family and her own courage and will, she succeeded in getting an education. Braving discrimination and the constraints of her disability, she earned college degrees at Ho Chi Minh University, and a scholarship brought her to the University of Kansas, where she obtained a master’s degree in human development in 2004. Turning her back on opportunities for a comfortable life in the US, YEN returned to Vietnam.

She had been exposed to the issue and practice of PWD rights in the US, and experienced the stark contrast in Vietnam: the barriers to PWD mobility, access, and employment; the cultural bias that fosters passivity and dependence; the lack of public awareness of PWD needs and rights. Despite her qualifications, her first job application was turned down because of her condition. Undaunted, YEN immediately set to work.

In 2005, with three other PWDs, she founded Disability Research and Capacity Development (DRD), a non-profit organization based in Ho Chi Minh City whose guiding vision was to create “an equal and non-discriminatory society” for PWDs. DRD embarked on public awareness raising activities; livelihood and life-skills training for PWDs; employment and job placement; and diverse other initiatives. Raising funds from international organizations, proactively working with government and the private sector, DRD systematically established its presence as the leading, most innovative PWD advocacy and support group in Vietnam.

Over the past thirteen years, DRD has directly assisted some 15,000 PWDs with skills and capacity building activities, scholarships, job placements, donations of assistive devices and computers, and, using social media, a website on laws for the disabled and a digital map showing PWD-accessible public infrastructure. DRD’s innovativeness was showcased in a pilot “motorbike taxi service,” with a hotline for free transportation for PWDs on specially-designed motorbikes. The project became so popular that DRD could not meet the huge demand. Moreover, DRD has worked with government and the business sector in crafting PWD-related policies and promoting PWD-friendly environments, as in buildings and transportation.

YEN is the quintessential achiever. Confident, hardworking, and articulate, she teaches at Ho Chi Minh Open University and has recently completed her doctorate studies in social work from La Trobe University in Australia, continuing to direct DRD even while doing her studies. It is YEN’s own drive to be able to live independently, and to see this in other PWDs as well, that is at the heart of her advocacy. Autonomy, inclusion, a sense of dignity, releasing and enhancing the capacities of the differently-abled—this is what she is about. Despite the continuing challenges and frustrating resource constraints, YEN remains inspired. She says, “PWDs write or call me, thanking me for helping them change their lives… This is what drives me to continue.”

In electing VO THI HOANG YEN to receive the 2018 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her dauntless spirit and prodigious energy in rising above her condition; her creative, charismatic leadership in the sustained campaign to break down physical and mental barriers that have marginalized PWDs in Vietnam; and for being a shining, inspirational model for the young in her country and elsewhere in the world.

First of all, I would like to offer a very special thanks to the Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for selecting me. I have never expected to be here tonight to receive this noble award and to join past recipients who I have long admired and respected. I could not believe it when I got the news! And at that wonderful moment, I thought of my late mother and her unconditional love and sacrifice for my education. I learned from her the value of gratefulness, empathy and sharing.

I also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the support of the Ford Foundation office in Vietnam for the IFP scholarship and their confidence in me, giving me the very first grants, helped change my life. I am also truly grateful to the support of my colleagues and volunteers at DRD as they are very much a part of my success.

Without them I cannot be who I am today.

For me, it is a great honor to accept this award on behalf of people with disabilities in my home country and other developing countries because I am one of them, who are considered as the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. It is all types of discrimination and the struggle of people with disabilities for a more decent life that have inspired me to do my best to make a change. This good cause transformed me from a helpless person with no future into a determined leader and a change agent with a challenging-but-worthy journey.

This award really reaffirms my belief that everyone is born equal in dignity and worth, and that everyone is entitled—as a human right—to live a life to the fullest extent of his or her abilities. It strengthens my hope that we can have more support and resources to build a better society that addresses the needs and wellbeing of people with disabilities.

We all want to live in a world of love, peace and happiness, but as Mahatma Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” If we make ourselves better persons, we will change our world.

Poverty eradication. Indigenous people’s rights. Social justice. Peace building. Each of these issues involves complex aspirations, seemingly intractable conflicts, radical implications. All are interconnected, elusive, yet crucial to building a progressive, inclusive society. In the Philippines, no one private citizen has been as directly engaged in addressing all these issues as HOWARD DEE.

DEE was born to a middle-class Chinese family engaged in the lumber business. Living in Tondo, Manila, working in a lumber yard while a student, and raised in the values of frugality, hard work, and concern for the poor, DEE developed his social sympathies early. After his studies at Manila’s University of the East, he carved out a successful business career as shareholder and president of United Laboratories (Unilab), a pioneering local pharmaceuticals company. Even then, his interest in social work was evident, when in 1970 he helped establish Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), composed of business corporations, modeled after a Venezuelan initiative in which member-companies commit to donate 2% of their profits to social development. PBSP was a response to a deep political and economic crisis that would lead to the declaration of martial law in 1972.

This historical moment marked a crisis of conscience for DEE. He withdrew from Unilab; feeling that PBSP was “too little, too late,” he decided to commit himself wholly to the cause of social development. With Jesuit priest Francisco Araneta he founded Assisi Development Foundation (ADF) in 1975, a foundation that, invoking the saint who loved the poor and lived with them, seeks to “pursue peace through development with justice.”

Peace, development, and justice are the intertwined issues driving DEE and ADF. In over four decades of work, ADF has implemented 4,123 projects that have served 10.5 million Filipinos. It incubated ASA Philippines, established in 2004, that has become one of the largest, best-performing microfinance institutions in the country.  Working with the Catholic Church, ADF initiated Hapag-Asa, an integrated nutrition program that has fed 1.8 million children. During the period 1998-2002, DEE initiated a concerted response to life-threatening emergencies in Mindanao, southern Philippines, caused by drought and famine, people displaced in the armed conflict between Muslim separatists and the government, and the deportations of Filipinos from Sabah. Mobilizing a multisectoral task force of corporate, civil society, media, and church groups, the Tabang Mindanao (“Help Mindanao”) program provided over 2,000,000 families with food relief, shelter, water systems, farm support, and health and education assistance. Subsequently, ADF took up the cause of indigenous peoples (IP) rights through legislative advocacy, scholarships, leadership training, and IP development programs, like the innovative Pamulaan Center for Indigenous People’s Education in Mindanao.

DEE does not present himself as a “leader” but a “convenor” choosing to remain mostly invisible as he resolutely assembles people, institutions, and resources in addressing a societal problem. It is in this role that his impact has been far-reaching. He is a person who thinks strategically and works quietly but effectively, one whose dedication to social service and personal integrity are unquestioned. For this reason, he has been asked by government and civic leaders to lead peace-building and reform initiatives such as the National Peace Conference (1990-92), Social Reform Council (1993-95), Peace Talks with the Communist Party (1993-94), and the Bangsamoro Basic Law Peace Council (2015). That he did not shirk the challenge of facing the most intractable issues demonstrates his deep capacity for service. That he served five Philippine administrations in four different capacities shows the deep trust he enjoys across sectoral and party lines.

If DEE sees his many engagements as part of an integral whole, the work he does is also integral to the man. Deeply spiritual, DEE explains himself thus, “Loving others is an expression of being human. We can’t be human unless we are just.”

In electing HOWARD DEE to receive the 2018 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his quietly heroic half-century of service to the Filipino people, his abiding dedication to the pursuit of social justice and peace in achieving dignity and progress for the poor, and his being, by his deeds, a true servant of his faith and an exemplary citizen of his nation.

It is with a deep sense of profound gratitude, and unworthiness, that I receive this great and distinct honor, the Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2018. The accomplishments attributed to me, in truth, are not mine alone, but of many co-workers. We receive this Award on behalf of our Lord and Master for whom we work: the “Omnipotent One in Three”. He is our motivation and our inspiration, the source of our strength and the strength of our cause. All that we do is to follow His commands and do His holy will. Nothing is impossible for Him.

There are a number of people I wish to thank. First of all, my wife Betty and my family for their love, prayers and sacrifices to support and sustain my work. Then, I wish to thank the five presidents of the Philippine Republic who gave me their trust and the privilege to work for five administrations: their Excellencies, President Cory Aquino, President Fidel Ramos, President Joseph Estrada, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and President Benigno Simeon Aquino III.

There are many colleagues, associates and co-workers who gave me invaluable help in my social apostolate of 50 years. I wish to thank all of you: in public service, in the peace office, in foundation work and development agencies, local and international, for your dedication to the cause of the poor and for your work for justice, peace and development. Special thanks to our Catholic bishops, priests, religious and laity and to our Muslim brothers and indigenous peoples of the Philippines.

Some of you have written me: and I detect a general sense of discouragement and even despair during these difficult times. This is my advice: “Do not be discouraged. Do not despair. It is in the darkness that our lamps should be lit. It is in the darkness that we see the stars of heaven. The victory promised by our Blessed Mother at Fatima is near. Goodness and righteousness will triumph! Justice and peace will reign in our land.”

And finally, my heartfelt thanks to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for keeping alive the legacy of President Magsaysay’s greatness of spirit, so that “those who have less in life would have more in law.”

Mabuhay Ramon Magsaysay! Mabuhay Pilipinas, ang bayang magiliw! Aming ligaya na pag may mang-aapi ang mamatay ng dahil sa iyo!

Burdened by endemic poverty and a weak, corruption-ridden economy, the Philippines took a major shift in the 1990s when it pursued a policy of liberalized, export-led, globally competitive growth. A key component in this shift was the creation the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) to revive the country’s export processing zones, replacing the earlier agency which had failed dismally in boosting export-oriented investments. PEZA was placed under the leadership of a career public servant who, in over twenty-one years, has built the organization into a showcase of successful regulatory reform, a model institution of honest and committed public service, and a key contributor to the nation’s economic growth.

This public servant was LILIA B. DE LIMA. Born in Iriga City, Camarines Sur province, and raised in a family of public servants, her upbringing instilled in her the imperatives of integrity and the ideals of public service. Trained in law, she pursued a career in government, serving in various senior assignments until in 1995, she was asked to serve as PEZA’s first Director-General charged with promoting and regulating foreign investments in the country’s economic zones. Her first challenge was to regain the trust of investors grown skeptical of the country’s institutional capability and political will to spur economic growth. And her performance was ultimately to be measured by how increased investor trust would be converted into actual gainful employment for Filipinos nationwide.

Bucking tremendous pressures and threats, Director-General DE LIMA single-mindedly pursued a program of reform: she determinedly halved the bloated 1,000-person bureaucracy she had inherited from a system of political patronage; she developed PEZA’s work culture into one marked by honesty, efficiency and—quite literally—one-stop, nonstop service. Putting the right systems in place and leading by strict and consistent example, she gradually transformed a failed agency into a model of transparent, productive, and customer-friendly efficiency, one that the World Bank has cited for demonstrating “best practices” in ecozone management worldwide.

Under LILIA DE LIMA’s leadership, PEZA enabled the rise of the Philippines as one of the region’s top investment destinations. Among the radical policies that made this possible were a shift from government-financed to private sector-led ecozone development; streamlined 24/7 PEZA operations to reliably service global locators; investor-friendly regulations, purposeful interagency partnerships, and strengthened relations with local governments in the ecozones. Defying conventional wisdom, she successfully encouraged existing locators to expand operations despite the volatilities of the global economy.

During her term, PEZA’s accomplishments have been nothing short of spectacular. The number of PEZA ecozones increased by 2,000%, from the initial 16 she inherited to 343 by 2016; the number of registered enterprises rose from 331 to 3,756; investments reached PhP 3 trillion; and ecozone exports totaled US$ 629 billion. Also during DE LIMA’s tenure, PEZA remitted to the national treasury PhP 16.6 billion in corporate income taxes and dividends, and paid off the PhP 4.6 billion debt of its predecessor agency. What is most deeply gratifying to DE LIMA, who is acutely aware of the urgency of the problem of joblessness, is that PEZA has generated, in direct and indirect employment, some 6.3 million jobs for Filipinos.

In a world where there is rampant cynicism and real pain about how governments function, examples of public servants like DE LIMA and her PEZA team are especially impressive. And yet, reflecting on her career, she says: “I cannot solve the problems of the world but if in my own little area I can make a difference, then I must make that difference.” For all workers in government, it is a credo to follow.

In electing LILIA B. DE LIMA to receive the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her unstinting, sustained leadership in building a credible and efficient PEZA, proving that the honest, competent and dedicated work of public servants can, indeed, redound to real economic benefits to millions of Filipinos.

I thank the Lord for this significant milestone in my life. Thank you most sincerely, Ramon Magsaysay Awards Foundation, for recognizing my work at the Philippine Economic Zone Authority or PEZA. Truly, this is a blessing to be awarded for work I enjoyed doing. My 21 years at PEZA was a privilege as it was a commitment. It gave me the opportunity to serve my country and help generate employment for our people. Thanks to the investors, who trusted in our capability to ensure that their operations can be set up at the soonest time and at the least cost undertaken with the PEZA hallmark brand of service—“One-stop shop, non-stop shop, no red tape, and no corruption.”

It wasn’t all a walk in the park. We inherited an extremely bloated bureaucracy. Trimming the fat by 60% was a long, torturous, and emotionally-draining process. It was the most bruising experience in my public career. Everything was thrown at me, but we did not waver and we cleaned up. As we strengthened the organization, we also instituted sweeping structural and policy reforms to remain competitive and address the ever-changing investment climate. All these paid off. PEZA gradually transformed into clean and efficient organization with highly-motivated, hardworking professional individuals. And I hope, I hope, they will continue to be so.

Our mantra from day one is absolute honesty and utmost service in all our dealings with our stakeholders. I am proud to have worked with my PEZAns, and with them I shared this award. I must likewise thank the investors—many of them I see here tonight.

The question most often asked is how I survived 4 presidents of different political persuasions and management styles. My answer is simple: Do your job with integrity and professionalism, and the bottomline will show it. It’s the best credential you can have and the only endorsement you will need.

But tonight, we honor the beloved president Ramon Magsaysay, who believed that a high and unwavering sense of morality should pervade all spears of governmental activity. I am reminded of his words of wisdom that remains as relevant today. And he said, and I quote, “I believe the president should set up the example of a big heart, an honest mind, sound instincts, the virtue of healthy and patience, and an abiding love for the common man. Guns alone are not the answer. We must provide hope for young peoples, for better housing, clothing, and food. And if we do, the radicals will wither away.”

Ramon Magsaysay has given us that heartbeat for humanity. What we have all been awarded for is in rhythm with the pulse that gleans towards what is right, what is just, what is good, and what is free to make ours a better world. This singular award, its salience and substance, and the precious memory it stands for, I shall forever treasure.

Scarred by the experience of war, transcending the demands of postwar reconstruction, and emerging into an era of prosperity, Japan saw rising among her people the spirit of mutual help, volunteerism, and commitment to the values of peace and understanding in the world. A sterling example of this spirit is the JAPAN OVERSEAS COOPERATION VOLUNTEERS (JOCV), a program established in 1965 by the Japanese government under its Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency (renamed Japan International Cooperation Agency). Now on its 51st year, JOCV aimed to contribute to the reconstruction and progress of developing countries, strengthen friendship and mutual understanding between these countries and Japan, and cultivate among the Japanese themselves the values of volunteerism, self-reliance, and a broad, cross-cultural understanding of other nations.

Japanese volunteers, aged 20 to 39, are screened, matched to the needs of countries where they are deployed, trained in the language and culture of the host country, monitored in their field performance, and given post-assignment support in terms of career counseling and job placement on their return to Japan. For two years, volunteers live in their assigned local communities, learn and speak the local language, share Japanese knowledge while respecting local customs, and carry out activities of socioeconomic improvement with an emphasis on building self-reliance and mutual understanding. Living, working, and thinking together with the local community are the core principles of the volunteer experience.

The program started in 1965 with five volunteers who were sent to Laos, and then expanded its reach to Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and other countries. As of 2015, 40,997 volunteers, close to half of them women, had been sent to 88 countries, with the greatest numbers going to countries in Asia and Africa. Areas of volunteer work span 190 fields of specialization in education, social welfare, health care, environmental sustainability, agriculture, manufacturing, public works, sports, and governance. Significantly, over time more experienced senior volunteers, and short-term deployments of less than one year were included.

In Laos, Japanese volunteers assisted a provincial handicraft center in the design and marketing of products in a project aimed at reducing the villagers’ reliance on poppy farming. In Ghana, a volunteer who worked with Toyota in Japan helped locals with on-the-job training in automotive repair and a car assembly shop. In Bangladesh, a succession of a hundred volunteers over a ten-year period improved the preventive polio vaccination rate and eradicated polio and filariasis in the country. In the Philippines, volunteers teamed up with local teachers in developing teaching materials and organizing programs to foster interest in science among young Filipinos. These are a few of thousands of examples of the myriad arenas of interaction in which young Japanese men and women voluntarily immersed themselves in other cultures and helped people and communities.

The work of JOCV volunteers improved lives, induced behavioral change, and transferred knowledge and skills to partners and communities in many countries. At the same time, their local immersion enriched them with an experience they brought back to Japan. “Alumni” JOCV volunteers have become leaders in volunteerism and development work, thus deepening and widening the spheres of cultural understanding in Japan itself.

For many, big infrastructure projects are the most visible signs of bilateral development partnerships, but the kind of people-to-people interaction that JOCV volunteers represent is the most humane and meaningful form of international cooperation. In the 1960s, young Hidekazu Kumano lived in Benguet, Philippines, working with farmers to grow thousands of mulberry trees. For decades after, he maintained his friendships with people in Benguet, saying: â€œFrom working with communities, I learned the value of being a human being, that I could develop my capacity to accept diversity without losing my core ideas.”

In electing the JAPAN OVERSEAS COOPERATION VOLUNTEERS to receive the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes the volunteers for their idealism and spirit of service in advancing the lives of communities other than their own, demonstrating over five decades that it is indeed when people live, work, and think together that they lay the true foundation for peace and international solidarity.

(JOCV’s response was delivered by Mr. Shinichi Kitaoka, President of Japan International Cooperation Agency [JICA], the government agency running the JOCV program.)

It is a great privilege and honor to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award on behalf of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV). This award means so much to me—and I know those sentiments are shared with our dedicated JOCVs who have served across the world.

Japan inflicted immense damage to Asian countries during World War II, including to the Philippines. Since then, Japan has worked hard to give back to the international community in hopes to one day restore its trust.

In 1965, 20 years after the end of the war, Japan established its JOCV Program and deployed its first batch of volunteers to the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Kenya. Back then, anti-Japanese sentiments were strong. Rocks were even thrown at our first volunteers in the Philippines. But through time, the JOCVs became a trusted partner and integral part of the local communities they served.

The volunteers lived and worked with local residents, learned their native languages, and were together in times of both challenge and prosperity. These JOCVs committed themselves to help reduce poverty and improve the livelihoods of their partner countries through social and economic development. They shared their experiences and worked hand-in-hand to contribute through community-based efforts, including in health, education, and social support.

I believe the greatest asset of our volunteers is their ability to foster these relationships on the ground. By establishing personal friendships, JOCVs are able to gain a unique and deep understanding of the society and its needs—all the while respecting local practices and values. It is in this spirit of companionship that JOCVs have helped restore the trust of Japan among Asian countries and integrate it back into the international community.
As our world becomes more globalized, the challenges we face become more diverse and complex. While Asia has made remarkable progress, we still face a myriad of challenges. Whether its economic disparity, poverty, environmental concerns, or so on—we must work together to tackle these challenges.

As our world becomes more interdependent, so must our response. To help meet this need, there are currently 2,068 JOCVs dispatched to 70 countries—575 of them in 18 Asian countries. And thankfully, more of our youth are committing to this cause.

Our JOCV Program celebrated its fiftieth anniversary last year, and I cannot overemphasize how much the response to our volunteers has changed over the course of those years. The Ramon Magsaysay Award is a testament to the trust that has been established by each JOCV with their communities. And I am so proud to see how those bonds have strengthened over time. As we look forward to the next fifty years, we will continue to work hand-in-hand to promote grassroots collaboration and further invigorate international trust and cooperation throughout the world.

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.

Over half a century of war and authoritarian rule has ravaged Laos, resulting in large-scale destruction, loss of lives, and a country that remains one of the world’s poorest. Yet it is a testament to the Laotian people that despite all this, here greatness of the human spirit has not been extinguished.

Born into a farming family, KOMMALY CHANTHAVONG lived through all her country’s tragedies. Losing her father in the Indochina War, she was a refugee at age thirteen, walking barefoot over six hundred kilometers from her village in eastern Laos to Vientiane to escape the bombings during the Vietnam War. Through sheer perseverance, she pursued her studies in Vientiane and in 1966 earned a nursing diploma; in 1972 she married and raised a family. After the communist takeover of Vientiane, life was extremely difficult and she had to walk long distances from village to village buying and selling goods between Laos and Thailand.Through these turbulent changes, one thing remained constant for KOMMALY—her love for silk weaving, which she learned from her mother when she was only five years old; in fact, fleeing her village in 1961 all she took with her were heirloom pieces of woven silk handed down from her grandmothers. In Vientiane, seeing war-displaced, rural women in desperate need of work, she used her meager savings to buy looms, and in 1976 started in her home a weaving group of ten women, whom she called the “Phontong Weavers.”

Thus began KOMMALY’s valiant efforts to help women earn a living and revive Lao silk weaving, a deeply esteemed tradition rapidly disappearing because of the convulsions of war. Her original group grew to become Phontong Handicraft Cooperative—a network of Lao artisans now spanning thirty-five villages and connecting over 450 artisans. Impressed by her success, the Lao government leased to KOMMALY in the early 1980’s forty-two hectares of land in northeast Laos for use as a silk farm. It was barren, heavily bombed-out land, littered with unexploded landmines that KOMMALY and her group had to personally dig out before they could start planting trees. This has since become Mulberries Organic Silk Farm, dedicated to the revival of Lao silk production, with hectares planted to mulberry trees, specially-built temperature-controlled buildings to house all stages of silk production, a large garden providing raw materials for natural dyeing, and a cattle-raising area producing manure as organic fertilizers. Since its establishment, the farm has trained over a thousand farmers and weavers and has created over three thousand jobs.

But KOMMALY’s initiatives went even further. In 1990 she started Camacrafts, a non-profit project that markets traditional Lao and Hmong handicrafts, working with hundreds of women in twenty villages. Three years later, she created Mulberries, a social enterprise that initiates income-generating projects around traditional arts and crafts, including the production of mulberry tea, wine, and soap. More than two thousand villagers in five provinces have benefitted from this. In 1993, the Lao Sericulture Company was launched to oversee and manage KOMMALY’s many initiatives. Her amazing work has covered the whole cycle of silk production, from growing mulberry trees, raising silkworms, creating natural dyes, to training, research, provision of tools, and local and international marketing of highly-prized handmade silk items. Despite numerous adversities, she has traversed villages to personally teach and encourage weaving, and to patiently set up silk houses where young women and men can weave world-class products. The soft-spoken KOMMALY says of her decades-long work, “Our goal is to strengthen the position of women by giving them a dependable income and thus improve the chances of their children.” Clearly, she has done this—and much more.

In electing KOMMALY CHANTHAVONG to receive the 2015 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her fearless, indomitable spirit to revive and develop the ancient Laotian art of silk weaving, creating livelihoods for thousands of poor, war-displaced Laotians, and thus preserving the dignity of women and her nation’s priceless silken cultural treasure.

I am very happy on this occasion to accept the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award. It is a great honor for myself and all my co-workers in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR). This distinguished award will light the way into the future of our work, and will give energy and strength to the small community of silk producers that I lead.

In the past women in remote rural villages, in mountainous regions like the place where I was born, did not have the same rights as men because women were only given the responsibility of raising children and doing household work. In those days women had limited opportunities for education, and were, therefore, unable to contribute to the family by earning money the way men did. But producing silk and weaving were ways with which women could make money to assist in caring for their families. This gave them a voice with which to speak to men regarding their families and communities; slowly this livelihood raised the status of women in our society.

Silk production and weaving are the proud ancient knowledge of Lao women, and many rural women passed on this knowledge from mother to daughter for many generations. Lao women have a responsibility to guard and develop this wonderful cultural heritage.

Silk production and weaving have created livelihoods for young women in their rural villages, thus reducing the need to flee to large towns and cities in search of work. In these places, many of them are at risk in so many ways.

The things you are hearing from my heart about the rights of women, the effort to preserve the proud heritage of silk handicrafts, and the flight of women to the cities to find work—these are all things that have motivated me to pour all my abilities—body and soul—into establishing this small concern that I have led since 1976.

It is my observation that the handicraft production that my co-workers and I are supporting has reduced the destruction of our forests caused by slash-and-burn upland rice farming. This is also protecting our water resources for developing agricultural production, in accordance with the policy of the Lao PDR government, which has called on all sectors to implement with urgency.

My co-workers, the villagers, and I are working with energetic enthusiasm to build an auspicious stairway on which we hope our future efforts will ascend until we achieve the lofty goals we have set for ourselves. It is the responsibility of our young people—especially our young Lao women—to take up the role of continuing this enterprise.

The strength and generous hearts of hardworking young women in this effort may encounter difficulty, so the cooperative assistance of the Lao Party and government, private citizens, international organizations, NGOs and other organizations will be needed. These young women will need our financial investment, our collective wisdom, and our technical expertise to help them continue our courageous endeavor.

We confidently believe that a good quality of life—and lasting security for individuals, families and communities—will require the support of the people from within Laos and all those with hearts to help, who will together build a new and bright generation that understands their responsibility for the future of their community.

Finally, I want to again express my deep gratitude to the president of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation and the foundation’s trustees for choosing to honor me with this distinguished award. Thank you!

Pakistan, says the UNESCO, has the world’s second highest number of children who are out of school—around five and a half million, some 66 percent of them girls. It can also be a dangerous place for education, being one of those countries seriously challenged by religious extremism. The shooting of Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in 2012 and the abduction of 276 schoolgirls in Nigeria just this year has appalled the world. But shocking as these events are, the problem is even broader than the cases may suggest, since the denial of education is caused as well by widespread poverty and the stark deficit in government spending on education.

In 1995, a group of six Pakistani business leaders and executives decided they could not just sit back and watch the country’s educational system deteriorate and thus leave the country’s poor trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty. They needed to mobilize investments in education, and deciding at the outset that they could not ask for private sector support unless they put in their own money first, they built five schools contributing their own personal funds. They launched THE CITIZENS FOUNDATION (TCF) as a nonprofit organization, declaring as its mission “to remove barriers of class and privilege” through affordable, quality education and “to make the citizens of Pakistan agents of positive change.”

From the outset, TCF had a clear vision of the schools it would build: well-designed and fully-equipped buildings with a capacity for 180 students at the elementary level and 360 at the secondary level; located in poor districts, whether urban or rural; open to all, but maintaining a 50/50 balance of boys and girls; professionally managed by well-trained teachers.

To assure quality, TCF has adopted an improved version of the government-mandated curriculum; develops its own books and instructional materials; and runs intensive pre-service and in-service programs for its teachers in its two teacher training centers. To assure access by the poor, tuition fees are low and costs are heavily subsidized, with 100 percent of TCF students covered by full or partial scholarships. Books and uniforms for the children are provided free.

TCF’s success has been spectacular. From its initial five schools and eight hundred students in 1996, the TCF network has now grown to one thousand schools, spread over a hundred towns and cities, with over 145,000 students in attendance, and guided by 7,700 teachers and principals. Consistent with TCF’s expressed desire to open up employment opportunities for women, all the teachers in their schools are women. Academically, TCF students have a 92 percent passing rate, higher than the national average of 56 percent, in the Matric Test required to earn their Secondary School Certificates.

All this has become possible through a well-conceived portfolio of donor packages that taps corporate sponsors, and tens of thousands of individual donors— particularly among the Pakistani diaspora—through TCF chapters in seven countries outside Pakistan. This fund mobilization has been greatly aided by TCF’s corporate-style management system, an impressive track record in the academic results of TCF students, and by its reputation for transparency, accountability, and efficiency. TCF has successfully tapped a vital wellspring of civic responsiveness among Pakistanis, and hopes that its example will be followed by other groups. As one of its founders says, “This project belongs to the people of Pakistan. It’s for them to sustain. We have to learn to stand up and solve our problems.”

In electing THE CITIZENS FOUNDATION to receive the 2014 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes the social vision and high-level professionalism of its founders and those who run its schools, in successfully pursuing their conviction that, with sustained civic responsiveness, quality education made available to all— irrespective of religion, gender, or economic status—is the key to Pakistan’s brighter future.

It is immensely humbling and an absolute honor to stand here before you and accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award on behalf of my organisation, The Citizens Foundation (TCF). Thank you. We are humbled to be included amongst reputed personalities and be the first organization in Pakistan to receive this award.

In Pakistan, dinner table conversations in which one bemoans the current state of the country and its future prospects are all too common. People’s concerns are, at least, partly valid; Pakistan has a politically volatile landscape, and paltry public expenditure, amongst other challenges. But truth be told, we see that there is much more good than bad in this world. In the face of our country’s problems, there are innumerable people and NGOs working towards a better Pakistan. Nineteen years ago, our journey, too, started with a similar conversation. Inspired by a belief that the root cause of Pakistan’s problems stem from the lack of education, we resolved to establish quality schools in lesser privileged parts of the country. What started off as a vision to build a thousand schools, over the past nineteen years, garnered a kind of support that we had never imagined; we are constantly humbled by the scores of people, both at home and abroad, supporting our dream.

As the largest private provider of education in Pakistan, we feel a certain sense of pride at how far we’ve come—how far our students, staff, teachers, supporters, and donors, have brought TCF. Today, thousands of children are off the streets and in TCF’s primary and secondary schools. But despite recently reaching our milestone of one thousand schools, the journey ahead remains long—while some of our students have been admitted into Pakistan’s best higher education business and management institutes, many more children, in lesser privileged parts of the country, remain to be educated. We dream to see a day where no child, in Pakistan or elsewhere, should be deprived of a quality education, where regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds; children everywhere have equal opportunities to develop, academically and otherwise. We owe all our success so far to God, who blessed us with a wonderful family of supporters who keep our organisation running, and our amazing students who prove to be a daily motivation for this work.

It is a great honor for us to join the list of illustrious, inspiring, and untiring individuals and organisations that have been conferred the Ramon Magsaysay Award, and we are excited for the host of opportunities that this award will bring with it.