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.”

Despite being initially looked down upon as “mere entertainment,” animation has come into its own as an art form, indeed among the most popular in the world today. By producing the illusion of motion, early animators brought wonder and delight to audiences wherever it was introduced. It offered a visual alternative—but also a recognizable analogue—to everyday reality, enabling critical comparisons in an often comic way. Over time, animation did more than entertain. It became a useful and effective medium for education.

Today, with the help of artificial intelligence, digital animation has pushed the boundaries of the possible in both positive and negative directions, further blurring the line between illusion and reality. Beyond topics and themes of interest to children, animation now tackles mature and complex subjects, from war and psychosocial trauma to climate change and sustainable development.

For some, animation is a technique, another way of presenting things by cleverly combining art and engineering. For a dedicated few, it is a passion and a way of life, a means of exploring the truth through the magic of visual fiction.

Among  those  few,  one  name  stands  out:  that  of  MIYAZAKI  HAYAO (born 1941), the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, today one of the industry’s foremost exponents of animated films made expressly for children but with a much broader appeal.

Founded in 1985, Studio Ghibli has produced many of the world’s most memorable and beloved animated feature films. These include such classics as My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), Ponyo (2008), and The Boy and the Heron (2023). More than being commercial successes—three Ghibli productions are among Japan’s ten top-grossing films—these are works that display a deep understanding of the human condition, engaging their viewers to reflect on their own situation and exercise their humanity.

That could be said of most notable films, except that MIYAZAKI and Studio Ghibli have set the bar higher by aiming for a segment of the audience that could be the most difficult to engage and please: children. Ghibli films have a devoted adult following, but MIYAZAKI has never lost his original and main focus. For him, children comprise a clear and critical audience capable of imbibing complex issues if their imaginations can be suitably provoked and directed.

“I think it is vain to think that we can confront problems of the adult world through animated films,” he says. “That is not to say that films aimed at children are easier; they can be even more difficult because they deal with origins and fundamentals. But I think these are concepts that are especially suited to animation. I want to depict the reality of present-day children in Japan—including their desire—and make films that will inspire heartfelt enjoyment. This is something fundamental, something we should never forget.”

Reflecting his respect for his young audience, MIYAZAKI does not simplify his plots or stories. He tackles complicated issues, using his art to make them comprehensible to children, whether it be about protecting the environment, advocating for peace, or championing the rights and roles of women in society. Some of these subjects can be sensitive and controversial in the context of traditional Japanese society, but MIYAZAKI handles them as a good teacher would—connecting with the young, opening their minds, raising fundamental questions, and inviting them to map the way forward. He educates by entertaining.

As the animator John Lasseter observed in 2014, “Miyazaki has directed eleven feature films [twelve in 2023], more than any other animation director in history. Not only did he write as well as direct those movies, he also drew all of the storyboards, every single drawing for each film himself. And every film he has created is a masterpiece. Each film is full of ideas, images, and emotions that are so immensely creative that it’s hard to conceive that one man thought of them all. Every time I watch a MIYAZAKI movie, I learn something new about the craft of filmmaking.”

But beyond his craft, it is MIYAZAKI’s humanity that has engaged many millions of viewers around the world—his sense of what connects us to nature and to one another. And Studio Ghibli practices what it preaches, as MIYAZAKI has sought to share his success with other workers in the industry, advocating for better working conditions.

In electing MIYAZAKI HAYAO to receive the 2024 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees hails a gifted and exemplary artist who has demonstrated, in his work and outlook, a lifelong commitment to the use of art, specifically animation, to illuminate the human condition, especially lauding his devotion to children as the torchbearers of the imagination, to whom he has passed the light and spark of his own.

Honored guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.

My name is Yoda Kenichi, Vice President for Events and Exhibitions for Studio Ghibli. It is my honor to represent our co-founder Miyazaki Hayao, at the 66th Ramon Magsaysay Awards.

Please allow me to read a letter that Miyazaki-san has written for this occasion.

Letter from Hayao Miyazaki

I first heard of the Ramon Magsaysay Award when I was a child.

I think it was in the school playground, and my teacher told me that such an award had been created.

The name made an impression, so it has remained in my mind ever since.

Being honored with this award made me think of the Philippines once again.

In 2016, the former Emperor and Empress visited Manila, which was the setting of urban warfare during World War II, to pay their respects to thousands who have lost their lives.

The Japanese did a lot of terrible things back then.

They killed many civilians.

The Japanese people must not forget this.

It will always remain.

With such history, I solemnly accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award from the Philippines.

Thank you very much.

All will agree that, as a Greek philosopher once said, “the foundation of every state is the education of its youth.” Yet, education continues to be an issue. In most countries, governments do not (or cannot) invest in it enough to meet the demand, and problems of quality, capacity, and access limit education’s potential as the foundation of healthy, dynamic, and democratic societies.

In Bangladesh, one of the world’s most populated countries, education is critical in addressing widespread poverty as well as sustaining and fueling the remarkable economic advances the country has been making in recent years. This is the challenge that thirty-eight-year-old Korvi Rakshand has taken up. He led a privileged, socially sheltered life, earned a law degree from the University of London, and seemed destined for a lucrative career in law or business, when he had a life-changing moment. Exploring a country he had not quite seen up close, he came upon a group of children scavenging for scraps in a dump. He spent some time playing with them, shared food out of empathy, and as he was walking away, a little girl approached him and asked him to take her home with him since she had none. This shocked him and left him feeling so helpless and guilty, he soon made up his mind about what he really wanted to do with his life.

He convinced six friends to join him in a project to teach English to poor children so they will have the chance to get jobs in Dhaka’s growing industry. With a rented room in the Rayer Bazar slums of Dhaka, furnished with nothing but a carpet, plus a whiteboard and marker, they taught their first set of seventeen students. Thus began JAAGO Foundation (the Bangla word means “wake up”), a non-profit organization established in 2007 that aimed to address problems of access and quality education for underprivileged children.

From such small beginnings, it has grown into one of the largest, most dynamic non-profit organizations in its field in Bangladesh. With education as its core program, it provides free of cost, government-recognized English-language primary and secondary education to underprivileged children through eleven traditional and online schools in ten districts of Bangladesh. Students are provided free uniforms and school supplies, food, personal hygiene items, health check-ups, and medicines. Located in rural areas, its online schools operate in the same way as traditional schools except that teachers deliver lectures from the JAAGO’s teachers’ center in Dhaka, using video conferencing technology. Students watch on big screens and interact with the teachers. Trained facilitators are present onsite to assist and monitor the students. JAAGO is pioneering in exploiting technology to address problems of access in hard to reach areas and the shortage of qualified teachers. Starting from that one classroom with seventeen students, JAAGO now has 206 classrooms and has reached 30,000 students.

JAAGO’s success and rising reputation as a change maker have enabled its expansion into other engagements. A major initiative is its Volunteer for Bangladesh (VBD) program, established in 2011. It seeks to involve the youth in positive social change through capacity building, youth led community participatory campaigns, mobilization for humanitarian assistance to build a skilled Bangladesh. This has stoked such wide enthusiasm that VBD is now a movement of 50,000 youth leaders. JAAGO’s programs have evolved into other themes, such as women empowerment and children’s rights, climate change, democracy & governance.

Illustrations of its dynamism is that it has set up a “Safe Haven Project” that supports the physical and mental well-being of the children of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in the sprawling Cox’s Bazar camp in Bangladesh.

The driving force behind all these is Korvi Rakshand, whose innovative, enterprising, and bold leadership has enabled JAAGO to build a network of support from donors, sponsors, and partners in government and the private sector, in Bangladesh and abroad, and more importantly, the popular participation of Bangladeshis themselves in their country’s social transformation. Venturing outside of his sheltered background, Rakshand started his journey by saying to himself, “Wake up!”—and, in the process of truly seeing—has awakened others as well. He said, “We wanted to start a movement. We were young, we were activists. It was a movement of young people. We said, ‘Wake up, it’s time to wake up. Not from your dreams but from (within) your heart.’”

In electing Korvi Rakshand to receive the 2023 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his determined spirit and quiet courage in turning away from a secure life to a more demanding one of working for the underprivileged; his strong, visionary leadership in democratizing education and inspiring thousands of young people to heed the call of social transformation, and for thus demonstrating how the young can be not just the bearers of the promise of the nation, but its realization.

As Salam Walaykum and a very good evening. Salamat Philippines, for inviting me to your beautiful country.

Today I am truly honored to stand before you and be awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leader for our collective efforts of JAAGO Foundation and Volunteer for Bangladesh.

Before I talk about my work, I must share the story of how I got to know that I was selected for this Award. I was travelling with my colleagues and suddenly received a message from Susan Afan. “Good Morning Korvi, this is Susan from Manila, Philippines. May I call you? My reply was, sure, you can. I didn’t realize it was a video call and I received it. When she said she was calling from Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, I was pretty sure that she would ask me about someone’s work, doing their background checking. I had no idea that she would end up congratulating me. Once again, thank you for recognizing our work.

Children are the future of a nation and youth is the power. The journey of JAAGO started with 17 children, a whiteboard, a piece of carpet and a room full of hope. I still remember the first day, when I asked the children, what do you want to be when you grow up. One student said, Rikshaw Puller, another said Tuk Tuk Driver, their biggest dream was to become a driver of a Yellow cab. The same children, after receiving quality education, now dreams of becoming pilot, engineer and doctor. Actually, one of the students who wanted to become a pilot now dreams of making planes. This is the power of education.

When we went to the rural parts of Bangladesh and opened schools there, we realised that it’s hard to find quality teachers. But why will distance be a barrier between education and children? We launched our Digital School Program, where teachers from Dhaka can teach students in the most remote parts of Bangladesh using a video conferencing platform. Today, these students from the slums are not only studying in universities in Bangladesh but all around the world. Despite their background, an opportunity like education can change the lives of thousands of children, whether in Bangladesh, Philippines or Asia.

As I mentioned before, youth is the power, Bangladesh and Philippines both have one thing in common. In both countries, the population of youth is around 30%. Through Volunteer for Bangladesh, we were able to bring like-minded youth to come together and volunteer for the causes they believe in. Every year more than 50,000 volunteers actively participate in various Sustainable Development Goals to achieve the mission of United Nation to have a better world. Imagine, if we can have a Volunteer for Philippines Program where young people can come together, discuss their ideas and take action to make Philippines even better. Imagine, if all the Islands in Philippines had Digital Schools where every child could go to school and have a better future. Now imagine the same in every country in Asia. Let’s join hands together and promise to stand beside the people of our countries, Asia and Humanity. Together, let’s make this a better place for you, me and the future generation.

To celebrate this achievement, today I have my family with me. My Parents, wife, sister, in-laws and friends. I would like to thank the people back at home, my JAAGO family of 600 colleagues, 50,000 volunteers, my students, child sponsors, corporate partners and supporters. without whom I wouldn’t be able to achieve this. I wish they were with me but to represent the JAAGO Team, I have a few of my colleagues from Bangladesh. I would like to request them to stand up. Thank you for what you are doing every day.

Being a Bangladeshi, I would like to end my speech in Bangla: Bangladesher jonogon er pokkho theke, Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation o Philippines er nagorik er oshonkho dhonnobaad. Thank You.

Ladakh in the northern India state of Jammu and Kashmir, is a high-altitude, cold desert region where some 300,000 people struggle in the midst of a harsh environment, wars arising from the rival claims of India, Pakistan, and China, and now even climate change.  Yet here the will to autonomy, creativity, and empowerment remains vibrant.

An inspiring example is SONAM WANGCHUK.  Born in the small, remote village of Ulaytokpo in Ladakh, one of many children of a local leader, he had a difficult education because minorities were discriminated against, schools were lacking and poorly-equipped, teaching standards abysmal, textbook content locally irrelevant, and the medium of instruction alien in the mountains.  Left mostly to fend for himself, he took control of his life early on.

He was a 19-year-old engineering student at the National Institute of Technology in Srinagar, Kashmir, when he went into tutoring to finance his schooling and help woefully unprepared students pass the national college matriculation exams.  Renting a hotel function room, he advertised a coaching program that, exceeding expectations, drew close to a hundred students.  Teaching basic subjects like English and Math, using strategies like peer-to-peer teaching, it was a financial success. But the experience also demonstrated to him how poorly educated the students in village schools were.

In 1988, after earning his engineering degree, WANGCHUK founded Students’ Education and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) and started coaching Ladakhi student, 95% of whom used to fail the government exams.  To create lasting impact, SECMOL partnered with local government in a joint program of educational reform.  Piloted in a village school, the program involved training teachers in a “creative, child-friendly, and activity-based” education; introducing curricular changes to make subjects relevant to the Ladakhi culture and context; prioritizing English over Urdu to better prepare students for higher education; and promoting the Ladakhi language.  Village education committees (VEC) were organized to support schools, monitor teacher performance, and become true stakeholders. Successfully piloted, this initiative of “localizing” schools was replicated in 33 schools and became a veritable movement.

In 1994, with WANGCHUK in the lead, “Operation New Hope” (ONH) was launched to expand and consolidate the partnership-driven educational reform program.  Taking a life of its own, to date ONH has trained 700 teachers, 1000 VEC leaders, and dramatically increased the success rate of students in matriculation exams from just 5% in 1996 to 75%  by 2015.  In 1998, WANGCHUK opened SECMOL School, with a permanent faculty, volunteers, and a yearly average of 300 students. An alternative boarding school that offers review, certificate, and associate-level courses, it rebuilds the students’ confidence, develops lifeskills, revisits the fundamentals and offers courses ranging from leadership training to solar power installation.  Also a model in its use of renewable energy and indigenous technology, SECMOL has produced students who have gone on to become pioneering entrepreneurs in different fields.

A natural innovator, WANGCHUK works out of local experience.  Seeing how climate change has affected the natural water supply for agriculture, he seized on the idea of building artificial glaciers in the form of “ice stupas” for irrigation during the dry summer. Called “stupas” (for public appeal in a Buddhist land), these are conically-shaped ice mountains, that store water in winter and in summer melts to supply farm irrigation water.

Six stupas he and his team have created store roughly 30 million liters of water. Beyond Ladakh, WANGCHUK has shared his environmental and educational innovations with mountain peoples across the whole Himalayan belt,  and as far as Switzerland.  Simple and non-confrontational in his leadership approach, SONAM WANGCHUK, continues to dream of ways to help the people of Ladakh. He confidently says, “The possibilities are endless.”

In electing SONAM WANGCHUK to receive the 2018 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his uniquely systematic, collaborative and community-driven reform of learning systems in remote northern India, thus improving the life opportunities of Ladakhi youth, and his constructive engagement of all sectors in local society to harness science and culture creatively for economic progress, thus setting an example for minority peoples in the world.

I humbly accept this award, not as an individual but on behalf of all the students, teachers and people of Ladakh in the trans-Himalayas.

This award is a recognition to our efforts of the last 30 years to make education meaningful, applicable and contextual in our remote mountains and to make it available to all… rich, poor, rural and urban through government school system.

Unfortunately when it comes to education, the world is still stuck with a system that is three hundred years old when at the onset of industrial revolution, the focus was on exploiting nature for human need or greed. A kind of war was declared on nature and our schooling system unfortunately became a training camp for this plunder.

In this war we evaporated half of the forests on earth and half its wild life vanished in just the last 50 years. Nature, too, has responded with equal fury, unleashing cyclones, storms, droughts, floods and made our air unbreathable, water undrinkable, temperatures unbearable.

We suffer the consequences in the mountains of Ladakh, where the glaciers are disappearing, causing droughts and flash-floods.

At our school in Ladakh, we try and come up with measures to respond to climate change by sensitizing each citizen, arming the youth to build solar heated houses, build seasonal artificial glaciers to restore climate-damaged valleys.

Yet people ask in despair how will you scale it up globally? Where’s the money?

Whether we have resources for environment and education depends on how we look at it!  There seems to be no dearth of resources when it comes to defence and arms. The world spends 1.7 trillion dollars a year on defence. But defence in future will hardly be about India arming itself against China or China against the US.

It will have to be all countries pooling their budgets for defence—for defence against new environmental catastrophies and climate change.

Let me clarify this: in just one year the world loses 10 million lives to air pollution alone, (this is a rate similar to World Wars I & II) and half of these lives are lost in India and China. And it happens without a single bullet fired from across borders.

So don’t we need to invest in declaring peace with nature, by re-designing our education system to heal the planet and its people.

As a symbol of beginning this peace with nature I want to dedicate the prize money of this award to start an international model school in Ladakh where government and community join hands to prepare our children for these challenges of tomorrow.

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.

It is a truism that it takes a village to raise a child. But it seems equally true that it takes just one person to launch this collective process of education. In the Philippines, where a public school system has been in place for over a century, many communities remain either unserved or underserved. Where physical access is difficult and dangerous, government’s presence weak and facilities are meager, and people are too poor to even claim an education, the work of public school teachers is nothing less than heroic, and yet largely goes unheralded.

This is the story of thirty-one-year-old RANDY HALASAN, a teacher in Pegalongan Elementary School, serving the indigenous Matigsalug tribe living in one of the remotest villages in the mountainous hinterland of Davao City. To reach Pegalongan from his family’s home in the city takes HALASAN seven hours of travel—two hours by bus, an hour over extremely rough roads by habal-habal motorcycle, four hours of walking, and crossing the waters of two treacherous rivers. When HALASAN first arrived in Pegalongan in 2007, he was one of only two teachers in a two-room schoolhouse, teaching multi-grade classes between Grades 1 and 6. There was no electricity, amenities were primitive, and the place was virtually cut off from communication with the outside world. The young novice teacher’s first thought was that he would seek a reassignment out of the place the first chance he could get.

But today, seven years later, he is still in Pegalongan. Moved by compassion for the children who have to walk miles and cross rivers just to get to school, and who often fall asleep in class from hunger and fatigue, and driven by a sense of duty to help the impoverished and defenseless forest tribals against the encroachments of powerful outsiders, HALASAN has embraced the Matigsalug community as his own. He has turned down offers for reassignment, and his family often does not see him for many weeks on end.

Assuming as head teacher in 2010, HALASAN proactively lobbied with higher authorities to expand the Pegalongan school. What was once a two-room, two-teacher schoolhouse is now a permanent school with nine rooms, eight teachers, and 210 students. Through his representation, a cultural-minority high school has been established, with HALASAN as teacher-in-charge. Convinced that education is key to the Matigsalug’s survival in a changing world, he has convinced parents to keep their children in school; discouraged the customary practices of early and arranged marriages; and promoted values of self-help and egalitarianism in the community.

Recognizing that poverty is the community’s fundamental problem, HALASAN has taken his advocacy beyond the classroom. He says, “If I only focus on education, nothing will happen; the children will continue to go hungry.” Envisioning a food-sufficient community, he inspired his fellow-teachers to donate seeds and encouraged the villagers to plant fruit trees and vegetables. Working with the Pegalongan Farmers Association, he accessed assistance from private organizations and government agencies. Prodded and encouraged by his leadership, Pegalongan farmers now have a collectively-owned rice-and-corn mill, a seed bank, a cattle dispersal project, and horses for transporting their farm products. The village is also now participating in a government forest rehabilitation program which by 2014 will have a hundred forested hectares, with the Matigsalug of Pegalongan as stewards and beneficiaries. And HALASAN’s youthful graduates are helping their elders protect their future and the legal rights to their ancestral domain.

According to oral tradition, the word Pegalongan means ‘the place from which the light shines.’ Because of one highly motivated civil servant, the village has become truly what its name suggests. Explaining his motivation, HALASAN says quite simply; “No one got rich out of teaching; it’s your legacy that matters.”

In electing RANDY HALASAN to receive the 2014 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his purposeful dedication in nurturing his Matigsalug students and their community to transform their lives through quality education and sustainable livelihoods, doing so in ways that respect their uniqueness and preserve their integrity as indigenous peoples in a modernizing Philippines.

Almost all of us experience a lot of struggles in life. Even my college life was an uphill battle. When my father died, I had to pursue my education by working part time. My dream was to become a lawyer or a doctor but due to limited financial resources, I therefore studied teaching. Now, looking back on my life, there must have been a reason for this career choice—I was meant to be with the Matigsalog tribe of Pegalongan in Davao City. On January 8, 2007, as a newly appointed public school teacher, I was sent to Pegalongan Elementary School, the farthest school in all of Davao City—inaccessible, poor, and isolated from any communication. At that time, we were only two teachers handling all the grade levels.

I told myself I had to transfer immediately; I knew I would not be happy there. But as the days passed—when I saw the poverty in the community, when I saw in the people’s eyes and gestures that they needed me—I began to love who they are and their simple lives. When we held the school’s first-ever graduation ceremonies, it was so memorable because I saw the happiness in the eyes of both the students and their parents. The Matigsalog elders openly cried when they witnessed the program: they never imagined their children could finish elementary education, given Pegalongan’s remoteness and isolation.

Since then, we have been able to increase the number of teachers and school facilities, among other improvements. We opened a secondary school that benefits not only the Matigsalog of Davao City but also those from Bukidnon, a neighboring province. Still, I was not happy, seeing my hungry students and their impoverished families. Even though I was already school-in-charge by 2010, I realized that I could not concentrate only on formal education. I decided to extend my work to the community so they could learn to make their ancestral land productive. I learned to work with the people of Pegalongan to plant crops like cacao, rubber, coffee and fruit trees. The tribe is now practicing multi-cropping to become food sufficient. Hundreds of malibago plants were planted along the river to protect us from soil erosion and flood.

My vision for the Matigsalog in Pegalongan is to uplift their lives from poverty. This was also the vision of the late President Magsaysay who showed his passion and commitment to serve everyone equally, and to ensure justice to all Filipinos.

I never expected to receive a prestigious award such as the Ramon Magsaysay Award. This is an extraordinary award, and it makes me feel very happy and fulfilled. For me, being a Magsaysay awardee is not about becoming popular; rather, it is a strong call to have greater passion, to serve our fellow Filipinos, and to become a true role model and inspiration for others. Rich or poor, I believe there are no limitations in helping our fellowmen, especially the poor. Nobody got rich from the teaching profession, but a teacher like me gets rich from sharing knowledge, values, and positive attitudes to the community.

I would like to recognize those who have given their effort and support to my vision for Sitio Pegalongan: my co-teachers, the Davao City government, field officers in the education, agriculture and environment agencies, other generous partners in our development efforts. My deep gratitude also goes to the people of Pegalongan—sitio officials, tribal elders, our students and their families—they believed in our vision of an educated and food-sufficient community. Special thanks to my former District Supervisor Ms. Ava Marie Santiago, to Bato Balani Foundation and to the media who put public attention to our work. Also, it is impossible for me to fully express my gratitude to my family, whose unconditional love and acceptance has encouraged me through all the frustrations and dangers. Above all, to our almighty God, whose guiding hand has always given me the strength to go on.

I truly believe that we can build a strong Philippines. If we open our hearts to serve the people without expecting any personal returns, whatever challenges and obstacles we experience, we can overcome all of these if we are determined, patient, and hardworking.

Mabuhay po ang mga Pilipino! Mabuhay po ang mga gurong Pilipino!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The gravity and scale of Asia’s social problems today are such that they demand large, complex, and long-term programs of assistance and sophisticated technologies of change. And yet, on occasion we are reminded that in a most elemental way, one can begin to change the world through seemingly ordinary acts of empathy and magnanimity.

Let us then celebrate the extraordinary ordinariness of CHEN SHU-JIU. The child of vegetable vendors in the city of Taitung, southeastern Taiwan, CHEN knew personally the familiar miseries of the poor. When her mother fell gravely ill, the thirteen-year old CHEN saw her father desperately asking neighbors for money so her mother could be treated in a hospital. What he managed to scrape together came too late to save her mother’s life. As the eldest daughter, she had to stop schooling to help her father run their small vegetable stall in the market. Five years later, one of her brothers contracted a chronic disease that drained the small family savings. The school she attended started a fund drive to help the family. The aid was not enough to save her brother’s life, but the memory of that kindness stayed with her. She knew poverty and despair, but witnessed kindness as well, simple truths that have guided the rest of her life.

Today, two decades after her father died, CHEN continues to sell vegetables from a stall in the central market in Taitung. What is astounding is that over these years, just from her daily earnings as a vegetable vendor, she has personally given away over seven million Taiwanese dollars (US$320,000) to various charities, particularly for the care and education of children. Recipients of her generosity include a Buddhist monastery, to help it fund a school; a non-profit Christian organization that rescues children-at-risk and provides them with food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and education; a Red Cross Society fund for helping families during disasters and other emergencies; the elementary school where she used to study, to build a fully-equipped library; and an emergency relief fund that enables students to continue their studies if their parents fall sick or are unable to work.

A devout Buddhist, CHEN works seventeen hours a day. She lives frugally, and is content with the simplest of necessities: afraid she might get too comfortable to wake up early for work, she sleeps on the floor; a vegetarian, she eats only two meals a day. Despite the recent recognition international media has given to her personal philanthropy, she remains entirely unselfconscious about what she has accomplished. Indifferent to public honors, she resists having a foundation set up in her name, and refuses to receive donations from others, saying she prefers to give away money that she has earned herself.

When asked about what she has done, CHEN simply says: “Money serves its purpose only when it is used for those who need it.” She is impatient with fuss that keeps her away from selling vegetables; she affirms: “My philosophy in life is simple. If doing something makes you worried, then it must be a wrong thing. If it makes you happy, then you must have done the right thing. I feel happy whenever I could help other people.”

In electing CHEN SHU-JIU to receive the 2012 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes the pure altruism of her giving, which reflects a deep, consistent, quiet compassion, and has transformed the lives of the numerous Taiwanese she has unselfishly helped.

It never once crossed my mind that I would one day be standing here accepting an award from your esteemed foundation. Similarly, I have never really given much thought to what we as individuals can do for the world. All I know is that people should work hard at what they do.

I became a vegetable vendor at a market soon after leaving elementary school, so I’ve been selling vegetables for nearly fifty years now. I rarely take days off and I have hardly ever had the chance to leave Taitung, not to mention go abroad, so my knowledge of the world is quite limited. And while I am good at selling vegetables, this doesn’t qualify me to speak any great truths about the way the world works. I do know, though, that I am receiving this award today because of the donations I make. Yet I have never considered myself a great person-I am just an ordinary person, a humble vegetable vendor. I simply do what I can, to the best of my ability. There is nothing extraordinary about that. In fact, there are lots of well-known people who have donated far more than I have. I suppose, though, that being willing to help can make a difference, no matter how little we can give. And everyone has got something to offer. What makes a difference is whether or not you actually put that into action.

I have always thought that making donations was my personal business, and I never intended to let people find out about it. Helping others gives me a sense of pure satisfaction and makes me feel extremely happy. Now, because of all the media attention, all sorts of people, including those I don’t know, may greet me and sometimes offer me their kind encouragement when I am at the market or out and about. To be honest, I get quite embarrassed by it all, and sometimes I just don’t really know what to say or how to respond. But this doesn’t mean I am not grateful for their support, because I really am. Likewise, I would like to thank everyone at the foundation for presenting me with this award. I wish all of you the best of health and happiness.

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.

The state of a country’s science and technology indicates its capacity to develop. By this measure, there is cause for grave concern in the Philippines. Consider science education. Poor facilities, unqualified teachers, unproductive pedagogies, and inadequate state promotion have worked against efforts to upgrade science education. Thus, the Philippines has trailed other Asian countries in number of scientists, volume of scientific research, student performance levels, and the quality of its universities.

Thankfully, there are some bright lights in the landscape. One is the inspiring story of the couple Christopher and Ma. Victoria Bernido. Coming from privileged families, both earned their doctorate degrees in physics from the State University of New York. They headed the National Institute of Physics at the University of the Philippines in the 1980s, recognized for their teaching and research excellence. They stood at the top of their profession and were well respected in the world community of physicists.

Then, in 1999, the Bernidos surprised colleagues by moving to the poor, remote municipality of Jagna, in Bohol province, to run an old, struggling high school—heeding the request of its owner, Christopher’s aging mother. It was not just filial duty, however, that led Chris and Marivic to devote themselves, as the school’s president and principal, respectively, to the Central Visayan Institute Foundation (CVIF). They knew it was more practical to simply close down the school; but they also glimpsed a challenging opportunity. Running CVIF would force them to come to grips with the problems of basic education in the Philippines. Marivic says, “For us, it has always been the bigger picture, the country. We both wanted to do something for the country.”

It was not an easy transition but they faced the challenge in a determined, methodical way. In 2002, they introduced a revolutionary way of teaching science and non-science subjects, which they called CVIF Dynamic Learning Program (DLP). A cost-effective strategy focused on strong fundamentals, DLP devotes 70 percent of class time to student-driven activities built around clear learning targets, aided by well-designed learning plans and performance-tracking tools. The program also uses a “parallel classes scheme,” in which three simultaneous classes are handled by one expert teacher with the help of facilitators.

In designing the DLP, the Bernidos wanted to show that poverty need not be an excuse to compromise on teaching and learning excellence. The results proved them right. In the years that followed, CVIF students showed radical improvement in their performance on national scholastic examinations and university admissions tests. CVIF is a small school of only five hundred, mostly-poor students. But the significance of what the Bernidos initiated quickly spread throughout the country. The school attracted national attention, and educators from over three hundred schools visited CVIF to learn about its program.

In 2006, the Bernidos designed the “Learning Physics as One Nation” project, to address the problem of severe shortage of qualified physics teachers. Launched in 2008, the project is now implemented in over two hundred private high schools, on top of the many other schools that have independently adopted the DLP model. The program includes a portfolio of learning activities to be individually accomplished by the students, and closely-associated weekly video-based lectures featuring National Expert Teachers. Real-time teacher-expert and student-expert interaction happens through text-messaging and electronic mail.

In remote Jagna, the Bernidos also hold regular workshops that have drawn the country’s physics teachers, international scientists and even Nobel laureates. And they continue to mentor young scientists from various Philippine universities.

In electing Christopher Bernido and Ma. Victoria Carpio-Bernido to receive the 2010 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes their purposeful commitment to both science and nation, ensuring innovative, low-cost, and effective basic education even under Philippine conditions of great scarcity and daunting poverty.

Recovering from the shock of learning about the award, I googled the life of President Ramon Magsaysay. He was often talked about by my parents, my father having served in the army against the Huks in the 1950’s before becoming a Recovering from the shock of learning about the award, lawyer. I read the Credo of President Magsaysay in the Foundation website. Allow me to quote two lines:

“I believe that he who has less in life should have more in law.”

“I believe that this nation is endowed with a vibrant and stout heart, and possesses untapped capabilities and incredible resiliency.”

What a realization for me! These were lines often spoken by my parents—they who showed a deep love of country. No wonder that I would be fascinated by the proposal of Chris when he wrote that we should get married because, among other reasons, “We are building a nation here.

Chris and I have endeavored each day to ensure that “those who have less in life should have more” in education, be it for a child or for a nation at large. The challenge is, “Can we give these children of farmers, fishermen, tricycle drivers, and laborers, the education at par with elite schools in Manila, in Berlin, or in New York? Clearly, facilities-wise this should be impossible. But then, we do not look at the material aspects. Rather, we focus on the mind, the spirit and the heart of each child, and there we see “untapped capabilities and incredible resiliency.” With this, we have realized that, far from being barriers to education of the highest standards, poverty and scarcity allow us to systematically zero in on the core of the learning process. And we are delighted as we continue to discover how this core is universal, transcending differences in race, socio-economic and cultural background.

I therefore accept this award with a renewed commitment to the ideals engraved in my parents’ hearts by the noble example of great men like President Magsaysay, which they passed on to their children, and which we now pass on to our students.

We remain deeply grateful to the Foundation, to those who have been with us — our teachers and staff, our students and their parents, our families, friends, colleagues, the Fund for Assistance to Private Education, the Department of Science and Technology — and above all, to our Heavenly Father who has been most gracious to us from the beginning.

However, we are still far from achieving our vision for our school, for schools in the Learning as One Nation initiative, and for our country. The joy you share with us today, your support and prayers, spur us on to work with renewed zeal, hope and faith, even as we face with excitement the many new results in the neurosciences that would usher in profound transformations in education in the present century.