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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Violence against children is a dark stain on our common humanity. It takes various forms that, for cultural, social, and economic reasons, are not always or fully recognized. Because the problem is often suppressed and unreported, a silent scourge that is not “seen,” it does not get the attention it demands. Child protection laws and safety nets are weak or non-existent; there is a lack of trained medical professionals and social workers; and dedicated health facilities and services are absent or inadequate.

In the Philippines, pediatrician BERNADETTE J. MADRID has devoted her career to ensuring that the problem is “seen” and fully addressed. Born to a family of professionals in Iloilo, Philippines, she studied medicine and pediatrics at the University of the Philippines Manila (UP Manila) and did a post-residency fellowship in ambulatory pediatrics at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. The center’s Child Abuse Program opened her eyes to a problem that she and fellow Filipino doctors did not quite discern, though this was very much a part of daily reality in her home country, with its conditions of poverty, child labor, trafficking, and violence.

Upon her return to the Philippines, she tried to establish a Child Abuse Program in the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) in Manila, the country’s premier public hospital, but the program was short-lived for lack of support. MADRID returned to Iloilo, started a private practice, and seemed headed for a quiet, provincial career until she was called back to Manila in 1996 to head an emergency unit for abused children in PGH, at the insistence of UP Manila and American child protection crusader David Bradley and the Advisory Board Foundation (now CityBridge Foundation). In 1997, MADRID assumed as head of the PGH Child Protection Unit (PGH-CPU), the first such facility in the country.  She would in the next twenty-five years pursue an active, multifaceted career that would put her at the helm of what has been praised as “the best medical system for abused children in Southeast Asia.”

A one-stop health facility, PGH-CPU provides a coordinated program of medical, legal, social, and mental health services for abused children and their families. As of 2021, it has served 27,639 children. It became the axis of a national network of child protection units when the Child Protection Network Foundation, Inc. (CPN), a partnership of civil society, academe, and government, was established in 2002. As CPN executive director, MADRID has designed programs and engaged with family courts, schools, hospitals, local government units, community organizations, and policymakers in advancing the cause of child protection.

In partnership with UP Manila, PGH-CPU, CPN, Department of Health, local government units, and the private sector, the Network of Women and Child Protection Units (WCPUs) was formed. The network now consists of 123 WCPUs in sixty-one provinces and ten cities, which have served 119,965 children and adolescents and 30,912 women. The network has a total staff of 237 physicians, 199 social workers, and eighty-five police officers. As head of CPN, MADRID oversees and coordinates the network’s five areas of work: medical and psychosocial care, child safety and legal protection, a national program for training in child protection, a national network of WCPUs, and research for a national database on child abuse. It is multidisciplinary work that calls for MADRID to be all at once a doctor, educator, researcher, social leader, organizer, and advocate. She has pursued it with humility and strength grounded in faith. She says: “I feel that I was prepared to do this work. I was given the talent to do this and it has developed as I worked. That’s why I’m happy. It has become, for me, work that is God’s work.”

In electing BERNADETTE J. MADRID to receive the 2022 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her unassuming and steadfast commitment to a noble and demanding advocacy; her leadership in running a multisectoral, multidisciplinary effort in child protection that is admired in Asia; and her competence and compassion in devoting herself to seeing that every abused child lives in a healing, safe, and nurturing society.

I am overwhelmed with gratitude to have been selected to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award.  Thank you all so much for being here to share this momentous occasion with me. I am so honored to have my work recognized by Asia’s most prestigious award!

I was asking “Why me?”  I found more reasons as to why I am undeserving of this Award.  It is like the violin player receiving recognition on behalf of the whole orchestra…I am just one violin player.  The other members of the orchestra are here tonight and I share this Award with each one of them.  It is a recognition of our work.  Please stand up and take a bow.

Women and Children Protection Units in every province is the core work of the Child Protection Network Foundation. This year, The Philippine General Hospital Child Protection Unit is celebrating its 25th anniversary.  In the last 25 years, I have learned that there are no quick fixes, that we cannot do this alone, that we need the system to work and that we need ordinary people to do their job with purpose, compassion, and skill.

Unfortunately, I also found out that ending violence against children will not happen on its own.  We need to fight for it. It needs planning, commitment, resources, persistence, and leadership.  With it comes accountability.

There is no other cause where everyone in the country has a responsibility – starting with parents, schools, and communities. Universal parenting programs, safe schools, access to justice seem like common sense but they are not.

When we meet with leaders, they say protecting children is a nice issue and we will get there after we have solved this crisis or that crisis.  But violence against children is a crisis!  Children are fast becoming an endangered species and with them goes our humanity.  We can prevent violence against children and most importantly we know how.  We are stewards of this world and particularly of the children.  We are stewards of their soul.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award has made me realize how much people care and that I am not alone.

Can we count on you?

If we can, please stand up.  Place your hands on your chest and repeat after me

“Ako Para sa Bata!”  I am for every child.

I am humbled and appreciative.

Human trafficking is one of the most abominable crimes in human history. The traffic in persons by means of coercion and deception for commercial sex exploitation, forced labor, or slavery, is an alarming global phenomenon. It plagues a country like Nepal, where poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and the suppression of women’s rights in law and tradition, have fueled the problem. Estimates indicate that as many as ten thousand women and children are trafficked annually from Nepal to India for prostitution exploitation.

In 1996, nearly three hundred trafficked Nepali girls were rescued in a police raid in the brothels of Mumbai, India. For six months, they were kept in harsh semi-detention in Mumbai shelters since they could not be immediately repatriated. Nepal’s government refused to accept them since they were seen as “soiled” female minors, and without citizenship papers. When non-government organizations (NGOs) intervened, the girls were finally repatriated. Traumatized, stigmatized and disowned by their families, their prospects of reintegration were difficult and dim. A group of these survivors, however, bravely decided that if society and their own families had abandoned them, then they would have to take control of their lives by themselves. These fifteen survivors, ages fifteen to eighteen, banded themselves into a group they boldly called SHAKTI SAMUHA—in English, “Power Group”—with the aim of empowering trafficking survivors so that they can lead a dignified life. While the group started work right away, they could not register their organization, being minors and ‘non-citizens,’ until 2000. SHAKTI SAMUHA is the world’s first anti-trafficking NGO created and run by trafficking survivors themselves.

Surmounting difficulties with the help of partner organizations, SHAKTI SAMUHA has amazingly accomplished a great deal in helping female trafficking victims, as well as women and children at risk of being victimized. In 2004 the group established Shakti Kendra in Kathmandu, a halfway home that has since provided survivors shelter, medical care, counseling, legal aid, educational support, skills training, and start-up loans for income-generating activities. Targeting women and girls at risk, SHAKTI SAMUHA also set up an emergency shelter in Pokhara, where diverse support services are offered for street children, child laborers, and girls at risk. They have carried out awareness-raising programs in trafficking-prone districts in Kathmandu, targeting slums and establishments like dance bars, massage parlors, and carpet factories. They have also organized community-based Child Protection Committees, conducted training for groups including the police, and used such media as street theater in their campaign against trafficking and domestic violence.

Pushing the campaign to the policy level, SHAKTI SAMUHA partnered with international organizations to develop protocols for the repatriation of trafficked victims, significantly influenced the framing of Nepal’s 2007 Human Trafficking Act and the creation of an anti-trafficking unit in the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare. Represented in the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking, they are lobbying to revise citizenship laws that are gender-discriminatory and that obstruct the reintegration of trafficked women. Now working in eleven districts, SHAKTI SAMUHA has reached fifteen thousand people in its awareness-raising activities; rehabilitated and reintegrated 678 victims of trafficking and domestic violence; and provided financial support for livelihood and education to 670 women. At the core of these achievements are the group’s founders and the five hundred trafficked women who now constitute its membership. Bonded by a common experience, they are relentless in their drive to help themselves and others like them. As one member declares, “Nowadays, I am ready to fight, to argue and debate against threats and stigmatization. We are trafficking survivors, but no less capable than others in society.”

In electing SHAKTI SAMUHA to receive the 2013 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes its founders and members for transforming their lives in service to other human trafficking survivors, for their passionate dedication towards rooting out a pernicious social evil in Nepal, and for the radiant example they have shown the world in reclaiming the human dignity that is the birthright of all abused women and children everywhere.

Namaste.

Granting the award to Shakti Samuha as the fifth awardee from Nepal is a great honor and pleasure not only for my colleagues and I but also for our partners—funding agencies, media and NGOs, the Nepalese people and the government.

We would like, therefore, to express our deepest thanks to the trustees and staff of the Foundation for working very hard to select Shakti Samuha to receive this award. It confirms that our mission to abolish human trafficking is right and should be pursued. It has been very inspiring for me to see not only Shakti Samuha grow but also to see more people get involved, stay involved, and work harder for the best interests of women and children who are the most vulnerable groups in our society. I am sure this award will facilitate our work in this very hard struggle.

Despite all our success, what we have achieved is still very small compared to the seriousness of human trafficking in Nepal, which needs continuous and integrated interventions to change public attitude and behavior. Breaking ground in the fight against trafficking is dangerous. We have encountered so many obstacles including resistance from unreasonable conservative communities, threats from traffickers, and frustrations in the failure of the legal system to provide justice to survivors. We are also daily witnesses and listeners to violations against women and children.

On a personal note, as a young female survivor-leader I have to overcome problems, such as seniority and negative reactions to feminism. I face challenges in choosing appropriate and responsive strategies selecting rights-based sensitive staff, enabling them to become more professional, and keeping them from burning out. But the suffering of survivors is what motivates us to continue this difficult mission.

We have also learned a lot from this work. First, everything can be changed for the better. But this needs time, persistence, accurate information, and proper planning with inputs from victims and all stakeholders. Second, empowering survivors to deal with problems by themselves needs to be effective and efficient. I am sure no one wants their daughters, sisters and mothers to be trafficked. Third, a leader in this kind of work must be dedicated. If the leader is uncommitted and afraid, members, the staff and the community will be the same. But if the leader is committed and brave, they will follow. Then, everything is possible. Fourth, coordination and networking is necessary for success to gain strength and confidence from people and institutions that they work with.

We struggled from our past when we spent a dreadful life which was like living in hell. After struggling, we realized that being trafficked was not our fault, and we turned our tears into power. This is why we are now able to stand up. So I have learned to be optimistic in my life and in this Shakti Samuha journey.

We at Shakti Samuha believe that society can be peaceful and prosperous only when men, women and children hold hands together with equal dignity and respect. This can be attained only with the participation and support from all sectors not only from women’s groups.

To conclude, we are very encouraged by your recognition. Shakti Samuha would not be as successful today without the help of our supporters. We hope the support continues.

There are few places in the world where the challenge of governance is as daunting and dangerous as in Afghanistan. A country ravaged by foreign powers, warlordism, civil war, and in 1996-2001, the regime of vicious fundamentalism under the Taliban, Afghanistan is embarked today on a perilous process of democratic state-building and development. The challenge is forbidding: widespread poverty and illiteracy, continuing disunity and violence, and the expected decline in foreign aid with the impending withdrawal of international forces. It is a place and time when true examples of hope are urgently needed.

One shining example is HABIBA SARABI, a fifty-seven-year-old doctor and mother of three, who, in a fiercely patriarchal society, is the only female governor in Afghanistan, and the first woman to hold this position in the country’s history. Of a relatively privileged background, SARABI attended university in Kabul and studied hematology in India. She was professor at the Kabul Medical Science College when the Taliban took power in 1996 and imposed draconian measures on the population, particularly women. Fleeing to Pakistan to ensure that her children could continue their education, she became a teacher and an activist. Organizing together with other Afghan women the Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA), she conducted women’s rights classes in refugee camps and organized mobile doctors to work in these camps. She also secretly traveled on foot, back and forth across the mountainous Pakistan-Afghanistan border, to supervise at great personal risk some eighty underground literacy courses in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, SARABI immediately set up the HAWCA office in Kabul, resumed teaching at the Medical Science College, and continued her volunteer work in literacy and women’s rights.

Her work brought her public notice. In 2003, SARABI was appointed to head the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and, in 2005, governor of Bamyan, a poor, agricultural province in the country’s central highlands, with a population of half a million. In these positions, SARABI vigorously pushed her advocacies for public education and women empowerment. In Bamyan, public education has not only expanded; forty-five percent of the 135,000 schoolchildren are female. In 2005, there was only one female police officer; there are now twenty, and more women are taking up careers that were forbidden in the Taliban regime. As governor, SARABI has effectively worked with various stakeholders in road construction and other infrastructure projects, agricultural development and improvement of health facilities and health workers. Recognizing Bamyan’s unique natural, historical, and archaeological assets, and their potential for eco-tourism, she pioneered in establishing the 570-kilometer Band-e-Amir National Park, Afghanistan’s first national park.

SARABI has consistently been assessed by international donor standards as among the top performers among her peers in local government. Bamyan has benefitted from budgetary rewards resulting from such recognition. In the Afghan context of continuing violence, political uncertainty, and weak institutions, SARABI’s accomplishments are truly inspiring. A member of an ethnic and religious minority—she is a Hazara and a Shi’ite—SARABI lives and works in a society where ethnic conflicts are deadly; and in the face of widespread hostility towards women assuming public roles, her courage and determination are astounding. Asked what drives her, she says, simply but firmly, “I’m not a warlord. I’m just a modern woman.”

In electing HABIBA SARABI to receive the 2013 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her bold exercise of leadership to build up a functioning local government against great odds—intractable political adversities, a harsh and impoverished environment, and pervasive cultural discrimination—serving her people with a hopeful persistence grounded in her abiding commitment to peace and development in Afghanistan.

Salamaalakum…. And Good Afternoon! Please accept the warm greetings of the Afghan people and the government.

I feel very honored and proud to be selected for this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Award. I would like to sincerely thank this esteemed Foundation for the recognition. I also want to thank those who believed in me and my work and nominated me.

This Award also is your recognition of the citizens of Afghanistan, and especially women who have dedicated their lives and services to building our country through their daily hard work with great honor, dignity and perseverance.

As citizens of the world, we can aspire to live a happy and simple life and yet achieve great heights. That is what President Ramon Magsaysay, as well those who lived during his generation, proved. In today’s complex world ravaged by geo-political interests and conflicts resulting in economic hardships to the poor, we need to emulate such values of humility, simplicity, justice and dignity.

I feel honored because with this Award, I am also being associated with my personal passion and goal for a greater role for women in my transitioning country. Women in Afghanistan today have risen above the confines of their homes. We have now prominent women politicians fighting for equality, housewives and businesswoman who are successful in their own rights, and activists and human rights champions who are working with a very proactive civil society. Within the government bureaucracy itself, we have raised ourselves above common expectations and worked hard to promote balanced development and good governance. That is why I feel this Award recognizes all of these achievements.

In accepting this Award, I call upon the people and governments of our two countries to further strengthen the bonds of friendship. Our two nations are located in the same continent, and we are bound much closer than we sometimes like to imagine.

Upon returning to my country, one message I want to take back is the importance of selflessness in public service. I want to convey to my friends, colleagues and the youth that we should never be selfish in our dedication to serve the people, even when we are faced with adversaries and challenges.

I will convey to my government to operationalize various good legislations that have been put in place so that they support wholesome development in a transitioning society. And I want to tell Afghan women to continue their quest for knowledge and learning to be competitive.

Within a year, my country will witness a turning point in our history. Again, women will be subjected to great tests. This period, without doubt, is a confusing period of uncertainty for us. But I am convinced that Afghans, both men and women, will prevail and democracy will succeed ultimately.

In conclusion, I like to say that this Award is one that I will cherish in my current work and future aspirations. The messages that this Award conveys will help me to commit myself to work harder to build an efficient bureaucracy and support a vibrant democracy in my country. In my humble words, I hope to serve as a role model to young men and women.

Last but not least, let me express that I commit myself to live up to the expectations and ideals of this esteemed Ramon Magsaysay Award, and I thank you once again for this great honor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Terimah kasih.

India’s rise as an economic power has not erased the blight of poverty on millions of its citizens. While numerous organizations wage war against poverty, still a huge population remains either unreached or poorly served. More men and women, particularly the young, are needed to respond to this formidable social divide. Young, committed leaders like NILEEMA MISHRA.

NILEEMA was born to a middle-class family in the village of Bahadarpur, Maharashtra. With a master’s degree in clinical psychology, she could have gone on to a comfortable life as an urban professional. But even as a child, NILEEMA was sensitive to the crippling poverty in her village. When she was only thirteen, she told friends that she had made up her mind she would not marry, so that she could devote her whole life to helping the poor. This was not merely a young girl’s romantic fancy, as subsequent events would show.

Five years after finishing her studies in 1995, Nileema returned to her village to organize Bhagini Nivedita Gramin Vigyan Niketan (BNGVN), or Sister Nivedita Rural Science Center, named after an Anglo-Irish missionary who devoted her life to helping Indian women of all castes. BNGVN did not begin with a development model in mind, except the conviction that the community’s problems must be addressed from within the village itself. Inspired by Gandhi’s vision of a self-sufficient, prosperous village, NILEEMA decided that her group would not work out of the priorities of donors, or compete for government projects. People would identify their own problems and find the solutions themselves. In her determined manner, Nileema repeatedly told village women who confided their problems to her: “Don’t despair, we shall find a way.”

And they did find the ways. Starting with a self-help group of only fourteen women, other self-help groups followed, engaging in microcredit and such income-generating activities as the production of food products and distinctive, export-quality quilts. BNGVN enabled these changes by training women in production, marketing, accounting, and computer literacy. Inspired by NILEEMA, the women went on to build a warehouse so they could procure supplies in bulk at better prices, and formed an association that now has outlets for its products in four districts of the state. Traditionally confined to the home, these village women have become productive, articulate, and confident in their ability to think for themselves.

But the men in the villages, too, had their problems. Driven by extreme economic distress, a shocking wave of farmers’ suicides struck Maharashtra. NILEEMA and her group responded by raising their work to the level of the village itself. BNGVN helped create a village revolving fund that provided loans for farm inputs and emergency needs; they addressed health problems by building over three hundred private and communal toilets; and activated a village assembly to discuss and resolve local needs.

The success of Bahadarpur inspired NILEEMA to expand her work. In less than ten years, BNGVN has formed 1,800 self-help groups in two hundred villages across Maharashtra. Its microcredit program has caused to be distributed the equivalent of US$5 million, with a hundred-percent loan recovery rate. But the most critical change has taken place in the villagers’ sense of themselves, their newfound confidence that they need not despair, that working together, they will find a way. For NILEEMA, now thirty-nine years old, the way has not been easy. She has had to battle frustration and failure, to find which approaches work best for each village. But she remains resolute and passionate about her work. Asked what gives her the greatest pride, she speaks of the villagers: “I’m very thankful to them. They are ready to improve themselves.”

In electing NILEEMA MISHRA to receive the 2011 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes her purpose-driven zeal to work tirelessly with villagers in Maharashtra, India, organizing them to successfully address both their aspirations and their adversities through collective action and heightened confidence in their potential to improve their own lives.

First of all I would like to thank Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for giving me an opportunity to share this platform with all the eminent personalities in the social development field. I thank the Foundation for coming to our small village and understanding what we are doing and giving it recognition at an international level. I must take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues and supporters who form the backbone of this work. Without them this dream would have been a dream.

Today, I am getting appreciated for my work and what I have given to the society. But it would be right if I say, I have gained a lot from the village where I come from. I have learnt from them that they have lots of potential for growth. They have a strong wish for betterment. A little support and direction would help them to become self-reliant, while maintaining their self-esteem. They can make wonders for themselves. I believe that being educated does not mean I would have all the solutions for their problems and I would be better than they. We have a rich culture. People are wise. They certainly know their problems as well as its solutions. There is a selfish section of society which is not willing to find solutions to the problems of poor. So they expect the poor to remain poor. Hence the gap between poor and rich widens. This leads to various social problems. All the differences and discriminations are man-made. There are many stumbling blocks that have built inequality into our social systems. To bring back equality, the poor have to develop in every respect – economic, financial, as well as social. So change in the social systems is very important and that is what we in BNGVN emphasize.

I believe if a person’s basic needs get fulfilled, he gets ready for social reforms. So our main focus is on helping the poor become self-sustainable by establishing a strong social system in our village, which would enable villagers to be responsible and answerable towards the development of the village. Gramsabha, or the Village Assembly and People’s Participation, are the best solutions for village development. People come together and discuss the village problems by themselves; after all, they know the reality that surrounds them and thus are the best judges of own lives. They find solutions and bring progress for themselves. We in BNGVN just play the role of facilitators.

Further we have realized that it is not sufficient to work on a particular issue like women empowerment or sanitation etc. We believe that if we keep “family” as a focal point and work towards its development—“Family” being a part of the community—community development is inevitable. An “Ideal Family” is a base for “Ideal Village”. We have tried our best to inculcate this concept in our villagers. We have tried to bring out a culture where people will believe in unity and cooperation. The whole village is now working hard to be an “Ideal Village” in real terms. That is why we say, Bhagini Nivedita Gramin Vigyan Niketan works for “Development By the People, For the People and Of the People.”

Among the many strategies to lift the world’s poor, one of the most hopeful has been microfinancing. Launched by Muhammad Yunus in 1976, the Grameen Bank provided small loans to destitute Bangladeshi women-to fund small businesses-and repudiated the conventional wisdom that the poor are not credit worthy. Today, the Grameen model is applied around the world. In the Philippines, the CENTER FOR AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT MUTUALLY REINFORCING INSTITUTIONS, or CARD-MRI, has been a leading innovator.

Jaime Aristotle Alip, the CENTER’s founder, was introduced to microfinance as a young staff member at Philippine Business for Social Progress. In 1986, along with Dolores Torres and Lorenza Bañez and other rural development workers, he founded CARD to assist landless rural women working on the coconut plantations of Laguna Province. With a start-up fund of twenty pesos and Alip’s “magic” typewriter-for writing grant proposals-the group set to work.

In early years of trial and error, the center applied the Grameen microcredit model. Its women borrowers guaranteed each other’s loans and pledged to make loan payments and savings deposits every week. The strategy worked. By 1996, CARD had thirteen branches and seven thousand members, many of whom were now self-employed: raising chickens, goats, and pigs; operating tricycles and street-side restaurants; and working as tailors, market vendors, and mini-storekeepers.

Alip and his partners complemented the CENTER’s lending program with livelihood-skills training and, in a strategic mid-course correction, modified their model to stress individual responsibility. They also launched a microinsurance program as a safety net against emergency expenses, so often a catastrophe for the poor.

In 1997, Alip converted four of the CENTER’s microlending branches into full-service banks, or CARD Bank. In 1999, CARD’s insurance program became a separate mutual benefit association offering life and disability insurance and a retirement savings fund. In Alip’s concept, these units-the banks, the insurance operation, and the microlending branches-were “mutually reinforcing institutions,” hence CARD-MRI. In 2005, CARD’s training center became a Development Institute, yet another “reinforcing institution.”

Today, CARD-MRI’s 629 branches span the Philippines. More than half a million poor women are members and two and a half million people are insured. The center?s loan-repayment rate is above 99 percent. This has allowed CARD-MRI to wean itself from outside grants for its banking and insurance programs. Instead, it relies on profits. It now achieves a return-on-equity of 12.5 percent on assets of US$18 million. Alip is targeting a membership of one million in the near future. Meanwhile, CARD has expanded to Cambodia and beyond.

The CENTER’s newest “reinforcing institution” is its Business Development Services. Its task is to help successful microentrepreneurs expand their businesses, accrue assets, and move into the economic mainstream.

This is the aspiration of every CARD member. But, as Alip and his colleagues acknowledge, only a few have advanced to become “mature clients,” owning an income-generating business with over US$2,200 in working capital and capable of employing from five to fifteen workers. Most remain poor. Even so, their lives are better for CARD. It is one of the insights of microfinance that even small additions to a family’s income can have profound consequences-for better housing, for better nutrition, and, most of all, for better education. Over time, these small benefits accumulate, securing and improving the lives of members and offering better hopes to the next generation.

Microfinance is not a panacea for poverty. But as practiced and enhanced by CARD-MRI in the Philippines, it is a hopeful path. Through it, says Alip, the poor are gaining control “over their resources and over their own destiny.”

In electing the CENTER FOR AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT MUTUALLY REINFORCING INSTITUTIONS to receive the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the board of trustees recognizes its successful adaptation of microfinance to the Philippines, providing self-sustaining and comprehensive financial services for half a million poor women and their families.

The Honorable Chief Justice, Chairman and Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, distinguished guests, fellow Awardees and dear friends.

Twenty-two years ago, with twenty pesos and a battered typewriter, I founded the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development together with fourteen rural development practitioners to bring the dream of sufficiency to poor landless rural folk to reality. Virtually unknown, with no track record, and armed only with its incorporators’ credibility and commitment, we envisioned to set-up a bank owned and managed by landless poor women. CARD received its first support in 1988 from the Asian Community Trust, then headed by Takayoshi Amenomori. During the initial years, we drew inspiration from Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank approach to poverty alleviation. After years of hard work with fellow incorporators-notably Dolores Mangubat Torres, now CARD Bank President and Lorenza de Torres Banez, Executive Vice President-the dream for a Landless People?s Bank became a reality when CARD Bank was granted a license to operate as the country’s first microfinance-oriented rural bank in 1997. In this journey, we were joined by Flordeliza Lanip Sarmiento, Executive Director of CARD NGO; Aristeo Dequito, now CEO of Business Development Services Foundation; and Elma Buedad Valenzuela, Associate Director of CARD NGO. They were CARD’s pioneer staff, who also worked selflessly so that services will reach poor women in remote villages. Alexander Dimaculangan, General Manager of CARD Mutual Benefit Association, made sure that innovative social protection products are also made available to members.

In 2002, we adopted the ASA approach and attained unprecedented growth, thanks to the strong support of its founder, Shafiqual Haque Choudhury.

Listening to our members, we found out that loans are not enough; they need an outlet for their produce, a well-made structure they can call home, higher education for their children, small balance deposits to draw upon in times of emergencies, build assets, create wealth. Thus, with six independent institutions comprising the CARD Mutually Reinforcing Institutions or CARD-MRI, we offer members with a broad range of financial and non-financial products and services.

The Nanays are at the center of our mission; they define our very own existence. We believe that increasing their access to financial and nonfinancial services will lead to economic empowerment. But more than access to resources, we maintain that control over these resources is even more empowering, leading to increased well being for themselves and their families, and to wider social and political empowerment. Translating this belief into action, many of our Nanays are now stockholders of CARD Bank. The Mutual Benefit Association, presently providing insurance coverage to more than two and a half million low-income Filipinos, is fully owned by our Nanays. Of CARD MRI’s 3,600 employees, one third are sons and daughters of our Nanays, who evidently have severed the bondage of intergenerational illiteracy. We will ensure that the management of CARD-MRI is passed on to their hands, and that their generations witness the end of poverty for their families.

May I request the CARD-MRI delegation to stand to be recognized.

It is with great honor that I accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award on behalf of the CARD-MRI’s boards, whose expertise enriched us; the management and staff and their families, whose sacrifices sustained us; our partners, whose trust buoyed us; and finally, my late father, Jose de Castro Alip, who believed that a son’s dream can come true.

If the poorest families of Andhra Pradesh State in India did not indenture their children to serve in the households of landlords, or to harvest cottonseeds and flowers, or to herd goats for wealthier neighbors — or if they simply did not send them to work in local factories instead of sending them to school — would not these poor families be even poorer? Many well-meaning people think so. But SHANTHA SINHA, Secretary of the Mamidipudi Venkatarangaiya (MV) Foundation, disagrees. And in Andhra Pradesh, she is proving she is right. 

As head of an extension program at the University of Hyderabad in 1987, Sinha organized a three-month-long “camp” to prepare children rescued from bonded labor to attend school. Later, in 1991, she guided her family’s MV Foundation — established to honor her grandfather — to take up this idea as part of its overriding mission in Andhra Pradesh. This was to link the total abolition of child labor to the absolute right of every child to go to school. 

In the poverty-stricken villages of Ranga Reddy District, SINHA and her foundation team encouraged local people to identify out-of-school and bonded children and urged their parents and employers to release them. They then organized transition camps to prepare the children to attend school. In doing so, they found allies among the youth and among teachers and local officials and even among one-time employers of child workers. With assistance from local and international donors, they expanded. By 1999, the MV Foundation was active in five hundred villages. 

By this time, SINHA’s original transition camps had grown into full-fledged residential “bridge schools.” Here children accustomed only to the factory or farm were introduced to a joyous but disciplined haven of learning. Using familiar songs, riddles, and newspapers, volunteer teachers developed the children’s basic skills and introduced them to the pleasures of reading. They then exposed them to a formal curriculum, to prepare them to enter a public school. Either through bridge schools or direct enrollment, some 250,000 former child workers have now done so. 

SHANTHA SINHA believes that poor children belong in normal schools, not part-time ones. She therefore seeks to improve the public schools where bridge-school students eventually enroll. Working locally in each school district, her foundation mobilizes parents, teachers, and elected officials to insist upon better schools and to support the cost of schoolhouse improvements and extra teachers. 

SINHA’s formal organization is relatively small but nearly thirty thousand volunteers and countless youth clubs, village education committees, teachers’ groups, and other affiliated organizations are carrying its spirit and work ever farther afield. Through this ripple effect, the foundation is creating a social climate hostile not only to child labor but also to child marriage and other practices that deny children the right to a normal childhood. Today the MV Foundation’s bridge schools and programs extend to 4,300 villages. More significantly, SINHA’s effective strategies have been adopted by the state and are now being implemented throughout Andhra Pradesh. 

A self-effacing leader who works at many levels at once, SHANTHA SINHA is “constantly networking,” she says. She wants people to know: Poor families who withdraw their children from work and send them to school do not become poorer. Family productivity rises when children go to school; job opportunities for adults improve when children no longer work. Ending child labor and educating children, she says, will lead to less poverty, not more. In SINHA’s bridge schools, children celebrate this hope. “Let us go to school,” they sing. “Let us change our lives.” 

In electing SHANTHA SINHA to receive the 2003 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes her guiding the people of Andhra Pradesh to end the scourge of child labor and send all of their children to school.

I accept the great honour bestowed upon me with humility. I am overwhelmed to be included with eminent personages and to be a part of such a great tradition of Asia. 

I owe this award to the parents in Andhra Pradesh who believed that their children deserve the best, and were willing to make enormous sacrifices to give them a life of dignity. The voice of these parents cuts across cultures such as tribal communities, minorities, dalits and others; across livelihood patterns such as agricultural labourers, landless labour, small and marginal peasants, artisans, fishermen, migrant labour, those engaged in informal work in rural, urban and semi-urban contexts. They have shown beyond doubt that there is a crying demand for education. 

I also owe the award to all the children who have braved their way to schools and are willing to fight a daily battle to continue until they finish school. It is no exaggeration to say that these young girls and boys, and their acts of defiance are paving the way for future generations of children and their rights. In a sense this award is a vindication of our organization’s stand that “no child must work and every child must go to school.” The award has been owned by thousands of our volunteers who are working relentlessly for the protection of children’s rights, especially the right to education. I often wonder what gives our volunteers this capacity to be so tolerant and magnanimous, and to engage even the most difficult of adversaries to become a protagonists for child rights. 

This was possible because of their belief in the path of non-violence and the power of dialogue and discussion. Their inordinate faith in the system and their conviction that it is possible to build a norm in favour of child rights is, indeed, so very touching. They know that in the emancipation of children, and building a society that respects them, lay the foundation for the emancipation of all. 

The Award has enthused all our partners — NGOs, government officials, donors, parents, youth, elected representatives, teachers, lobbyists — those who ardently believe that abolishing all forms of child labour and sending children to full-time formal schools is non-negotiable. There is a mood of celebration shared by everyone who is contributing towards the protection of child rights. Even in the remotest of villages in Andhra Pradesh, meetings and rallies are being held; messages of congratulations and greetings are being exchanged, giving all of us great sense of pride. 

It is still hard to believe the dramatic effect the Award has had. Protection of child rights has now made the headlines in the press and on TV. The possibility of children enjoying the right to education is being intensely discussed in the media, in schools, at work places, in farms and factories and in government departments. This is something we had always dreamed must happen. The Ramon Magsaysay Award has made it possible almost overnight. We do hope to seize this moment to move further towards the abolition of child labour. I thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for putting the issue of child rights on centre stage!

Violence against women knows no one place or social condition, alas. But it flourishes in times of upheaval and great social change, as in Cambodia during its long painful recovery from war and holocaust. OUNG CHANTHOL, executive director of the Cambodian Women?s Crisis Center (CWCC), wants to make her country a safer place for women. 

Born in Kampot, Cambodia in 1967, OUNG lost her father to the Khmer Rouge and spent many years of her youth in a Thai refugee camp. There she studied law and public administration and led a job-training program for widows. Returning home in 1992 under the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), she worked as an interpreter and joined a human rights task force. Here she became acquainted with the magnitude of sex trafficking and other gender-related crimes in Cambodia. Following a period of study at Columbia University and an assignment with the Cambodia office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, she decided to act. With the support of friends and of Terre des Hommes (Germany and the Netherlands) she founded CWCC in 1997. 

Prostitution has a long history in Cambodia. But it rose dramatically during the UNTAC transition and afterwards. By 1994, in Phnom Penh alone, some 17,000 women and girls were involved, most of them sold or tricked into prostitution and kept in virtual servitude. Thousands more were being trafficked to Thailand to be prostitutes, maids, and beggars. Profits from this cruel trade were shared by traffickers and brothel owners and by the goons, police, and politicians who protected them. For the women, there was no recourse. 

It was the same for victims of rape and domestic violence, crimes the Cambodian police barely acknowledged and acted upon capriciously, if at all. Many women endured such an assault fatalistically, fearing they had somehow brought it upon themselves-a view Cambodian society tended to uphold. 

OUNG moved her new organization into action quickly. CWCC set up confidential shelters for women rescued from brothels and abusive husbands. It gave legal assistance to victims of rape, trafficking, and domestic abuse and helped them understand their rights. It investigated cases of gender violence of all kinds and prodded the police to intervene and make arrests. It provided medical care and counseling, giving comfort to hundreds of women who, before CWCC, had no one to talk to about their fear, shame, and depression. And it trained women in literacy, health, and livelihood skills and helped them find jobs. Thousands of women have now received such assistance from CWCC. 

By painstakingly documenting hundreds of cases of rape, trafficking, and domestic abuse, OUNG has learned that these crimes are abetted by pervasive ignorance. CWCC therefore mounts awareness campaigns to tell people that sex trafficking is illegal and should be deterred. It educates local authorities and the police. It broadcasts effective radio and TV messages and provides authoritative data to journalists; OUNG herself speaks bluntly to the media. With its partners in Cambodia’s growing civil society, it is carrying the dialogue about women?s rights to the highest levels of government. 

At CWCC, the future is charted at meetings where OUNG and her twenty-five staff members analyze problems and brainstorm about solutions. There are many problems. In Cambodia, old habits die hard and the wheels of justice grind slowly. Moreover, CWCC’s work is inherently dangerous, provoking the wrath of brothel owners, angry husbands, police, and politicians. 

OUNG and her colleagues are accustomed to this. Soft-spoken but passionate, thirty-four-year-old Oung shrugs off the dangers and, when frustration mounts, gathers her staff to talk things through. And the work goes on. 

In electing OUNG CHANTHOL to receive the 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes her rising courageously to confront and eliminate sex trafficking and gender violence in Cambodia.

Your Excellency President Gloria M. Arroyo, members of the Magsaysay family, distinguished guests, trustees, fellow awardees, ladies and gentlemen: 

Granting an award to me tonight as the second awardee from Cambodia is a great honor and pleasure for me, my family; my colleagues at CWCC; funding agencies, media, partner NGOs, Cambodian people; and government. 

I would like therefore to express my deepest thanks to the trustees and staff for working very hard in selecting me to receive the Award for Emergent Leadership. It confirms that our mission of eliminating violence against women is right and should be pursued. It has been very inspiring for me to see not only CWCC grow, but also get more young people involved, stay involved and work harder for the best interests of women and children who are the most vulnerable groups. I am sure that the recognition will facilitate my work in this very hard struggle. 

In 1997, my friends and I, with the support of TDH, decided to establish the Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center (CWCC) in response to the outcry of hundreds of thousands of women and children who were victims of sex trafficking, rape and domestic violence. Communities were ignoring their cries for help because they could not access services such as safe shelter, therapy, social services, legal remedies and justice. Our mission is to empower women and children victims to help themselves, and to mobilize communities and government officials in responding and eliminating violence against women to achieve safety, equality, peace, development and happiness for all. 

After many years of great effort in empowering victims, villagers, police officers, local authorities, and the court; gradually become our allies in assisting victims and preventing issues and start to cope with the problem by themselves. An office and hot line for helping the victims have been set up for them and the same programs are duplicated by other NGOs and a few ministries. The lawyers, who traditionally represented only the accused, agreed to assist the victims. Newspapers, TV, and radio now are actively and successfully working together in disseminating information to the public and policy and lawmakers. The media and newspapers come to us for information, unlike in the beginning when CWCC staff approached them. It is common to see CWCC’s work reported in the media. 

Last year, the Ministry of Social Affairs, Labor, Vocational Training and Youth Rehabilitation presented two Certificates of Appreciation to CWCC for its outstanding work. 

Despite all our success, what we have achieved is still very small compared to the seriousness of violence against women in Cambodia, which needs continuous and integrated interventions and gender-based sensitivity to change public attitude and behavior. 

Breaking ground in the fight against violence against women is lengthy and dangerous. We have encountered so many obstacles including resistance from unreasonable conservative communities, threats from abusers, and the frustration in the failure of the legal system in providing justice to victims. We are also daily witnesses and listeners to abuse against women and children. 

On a personal note, as a young female leader I have to overcome other problems such as seniority and negative reactions to feminism. I face challenges in choosing appropriate and responsive strategies, selecting the right gender-sensitive staff, enabling them to become more professional, and keeping them from burning out. But the suffering of victims is the motivating factor for us to continue this difficult mission. 

I have also learned a lot from this work. First, everything can be changed for the better. But it needs time, persistence, accurate information, and proper planning with input from the victims and all the stakeholders. Second, empowering people to deal with problems by themselves needs to be effective and efficient. I am sure that no one wants violence against their daughters, sisters and mothers if they are aware that it is violence and it is unjust. Culturally, we have been taught that violence against women is an acceptable act and a private matter. We therefore need to educate people and empower them to collectively respond to the issue by themselves. Third, a leader in this kind of work must be dedicated. If the leader is uncommitted and afraid, the staff will be the same, but if the leader is committed and brave, the staff will follow suit. Then, everything is possible. Fourth, coordination and networking is necessary for success and the leader must constantly build her own capacity through formal and informal education to gain strength and confidence from people and institutions they work with. 

SI believe that a society can be peaceful and prosperous only when men, women and children hold hands together with equal dignity and respect. These can be attained only with participation and support from all sectors, not only from women?s groups, including civil society, government, NGOs, men and women. 

To conclude, I am very encouraged by your recognition. CWCC would not be as successful as today without the help of our supporters. I hope the support is continued. THANK YOU!

The Silk Road once linked East Asia to Western Europe and hosted flourishing oases of high art and civilization all along its great length. Today, many remnants of its brilliant past lie in ruin. The same is true of countless other cultural artifacts around the world. Whose responsibility is it to care for these treasures? Professor IKUO HIRAYAMA believes that they are the inheritance of the entire world; the entire world, therefore, should join in caring for them. He is setting the example.

Born in 1930, HIRAYAMA was attending middle school in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb destroyed the city and killed many of his schoolmates and teachers. He went on to study Japanese painting at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (now the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music) and joined the school’s faculty in 1952. Suffering badly from radiation sickness a few years later, HIRAYAMA endured a crisis that led to a spiritual awakening and recovery. He expressed his breakthrough in a painting depicting the seventh-century monk Xuanzang, bearing the message of Buddha across the Silk Road to China, from whence it reached Japan. HIRAYAMA’s interest in Buddhism’s origins and its path to Japan influenced his paintings for years to come and led him to explore the Silk Road for himself.

Year after year, he did so. All along the fabled route he encountered long-neglected Buddhist shrines and works of art. In Dunhuang, northwest China, he saw hundreds of cliff-side grottoes filled with ancient Buddha images and bright paintings-priceless antiquities that China lacked the resources to protect. HIRAYAMA pondered this. Each one of the Silk Road’s historic entrepots and pilgrimage sites had contributed to the passage of Buddhism to Japan. This insight led HIRAYAMA to persuade the Japanese government to underwrite and equip a groundbreaking research and restoration project at the Dunhuang Caves.

But there were so many sites like the Dunhuang Caves in Asia. Some of them, like the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, lay in countries beset by turbulence and without the means or will to protect them. What was needed, HIRAYAMA decided, was an international campaign to save cultural treasures wherever they existed. By this time, his paintings had brought him fame and wealth, and he was a professor (and later president) of a prestigious art school. HIRAYAMA now put these assets to use as an activist for cultural preservation.

He spearheaded international efforts to rehabilitate Angkor Wat in Cambodia and to safeguard the ancient Korguryo tomb frescoes of North Korea. He helped rescue Chinese artifacts from the Yangtze River flood of 1998 and, in the city of Nanjing, fostered Chinese-Japanese reconciliation by recruiting Japanese volunteers to help rebuild the ancient city ramparts. He funded French-led efforts to save war-threatened treasures in Afghanistan’s national museum and led an international appeal to the Taliban not to destroy the unique Bamiyan Buddhas. And much more.

HIRAYAMA channels his collaborative efforts through his own foundation and through governments, international organizations, and UNESCO, for whom he serves as a Goodwill Ambassador. Exhibitions of his paintings, in Japan and abroad, arouse public interest and generate funds for restoration projects. He has committed many millions of dollars personally.

HIRAYAMA believes that restoring works of art goes hand-in-hand with restoring human societies. Projects like those in Cambodia must always include training for members of the host community so that, in time, they can assume the restoration work themselves. This, he says, helps damaged societies to reestablish kinship with their own past and, in doing so, “restore their humanity.”

In electing IKUO HIRAYAMA to receive the 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding, the board of trustees recognizes his efforts to promote peace and international cooperation by fostering a common bond of stewardship for the world’s cultural treasures.

Your Excellency Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, President of the Philippines, Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is indeed a great honor and privilege for me to have been selected as this year’s recipient of the world-renowned Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding.

First of all, I should like to express my heartfelt gratitude and deepest appreciation to the members of the Foundation and to all of you gathered here today. I should especially like to offer my warm congratulations to the other award honorees.

I was exposed to the atomic bomb in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. At the time I was in my third year of junior high school. I miraculously escaped death, although I suffered for some time from the after effects of nuclear exposure. This experience — feeling firsthand the suffering and devastation caused by war — motivated me to create my artistic works in the pursuit of lasting peace.

In 1962, I was awarded a UNESCO Fellowship, which I used to study European Art. Later on, I had the pleasure of expressing my gratitude to UNESCO by providing 100 Hirayama Silk Road Fellowships for Young Scholars over a period of 10 years. As Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO, I also made humble efforts to safeguard the Angkor Monuments in Cambodia and the Dunhuang Grottoes in China. Currently, I am engaged in the preservation of artistic works of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, and of the Koguryo Tombs’ mural paintings in D.P.R. Korea.

Through our shared efforts to preserve outstanding cultural properties for future generations and to strengthen cultural exchanges among the world’s people, I firmly believe that together we can promote a culture of peace and mutual understanding. To help achieve this goal, I have been advocating the “Red Cross Spirit for Cultural Heritage” and joint activities “to promote peace through culture.”

This highly prestigious Award encourages me to continue my work dedicated to the cause of peace.

In closing, let me express once again my profound sense of appreciation for having received this award. I should also like to express my great respect for the late President Magsaysay, in whose memory these awards were established. Finally, please allow me to wish further prosperity and wellbeing to all those gathered here today and to the people of the Philippines, under the capable leadership of your President.

Thank you very much.