For 38 years GENEVIEVE CAULFIELD has befriended the blind in Japan, then Thailand and now in Vietnam, sharing with all she met the deep conviction of man’s brotherhood and the “kingdom within” which led her across the sea. 

Blind from infancy, she taught herself to live like other people, to be independent and useful. Prompted by an example of prejudice stemming from ignorance of another people’s way of life, she decided at the age of 17 to contribute to international understanding by learning to know the Japanese while helping their blind. 

For 15 years she prepared for this undertaking, surmounting countless obstacles that would have daunted a less determined voyager. Qualifying as a teacher of English, she did practice teaching of the blind, proved she could earn a living and move about alone. 

Arriving in Japan in 1923, she first lived with Japanese families to learn their customs and language. Supporting herself by teaching English, she also trained blind people to read Braille. After the close of World War II, she returned to Japan to help school the adult blind and other physically handicapped. 

When she learned that those without sight in Thailand were considered useless, she spared no effort until there had been created a Bangkok School for the Blind. Financed partly from her own savings when it was opened in 1938, the School now is well-established and has won regular government and private support. Refusing repatriation, she kept classes going throughout the war and now gives vocational training and helps pupils find suitable work. 

An invitation from the Government of Vietnam led to her most recent effort for the blind; the opening of an elementary school for the sightless in Saigon in 1958. It is now being enlarged to include a rehabilitation center for boys. 

Over the years she has made periodic lecture tours in the United States, sharing with her countrymen the understanding that is the fruit of affectionate labors. Now at the age of 73 a commuter between three Asian countries, she continues to support herself by teaching English, while working with the blind. 

In electing GENEVIEVE CAULFIELD to receive the 1961 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, the Board of Trustees recognizes her international citizenship and guidance to full and useful lives of those in other lands afflicted like herself.

During my rather long life, I have had many surprises, but I can say with truth that I have never been so utterly astonished as when I received the telegram telling me that I had been selected for the Ramon Magsaysay Award. 

My first reaction was to take a quick look backward at my modest accomplishments, and to wonder why the people who have really done all sorts of things in Asia had not been chosen instead of me. But even though I knew my unworthiness, I was filled with deep satisfaction that I, even I, was to receive the Magsaysay Award. 

From the end of the war, I followed with deepest admiration the determined and wisely directed struggle of your great President against the forces of disruption and subversion which were threatening to take over your country. His outstanding leadership, not only in Asia, but in the entire free world encouraged and inspired those of us who were looking forward to a better world after the ravages of war. Then came the news of his untimely death. To me, as to many others, it was a personal loss as well as a blow to the cause of freedom. 

You can imagine, therefore, how happy I am to know that, from now on, my name will in an humble way be associated with that of this outstanding statesman and truly great patriot. 

I need not tell you that I regard this Award as a trust, to be used in the cause of international understanding, and to help blind people here in Asia to assume their rightful place in the world that needs them. I do not look upon it as an award to me, but to all those in Japan, Thailand and Vietnam, without whose help and understanding I could have done nothing. 

Thank you once again, and be assured that this Award is, and will continue to be, a stimulus for me to put forth every possible effort to work for international understanding and for the welfare of the blind, as long as Almighty God gives me life and strength.

AMITABHA CHOWDHURY has been in the vanguard of a new journalism in the Bengali press. He sees the modern Indian intellectual as the heir to an ethical system and a philosophical culture, who, whether he is a politician or government official, is judged by his honesty, self-sacrifice and the urge he shows to public service. It is to this tradition that AMITABHA CHOWDHURY has courageously responded. 

Now Assistant Editor of Jugantar, an influential Calcutta daily newspaper in Bengali, his crusading sensitivity to the problems of his fellowmen was demonstrated soon after he joined the staff 12 years ago. Assigned to report on the great movement of refugees in Bengal following the partition of India and Pakistan, he introduced a humanized style of writing in the Bengali press and established his newspaper as a champion of the cause of the refugees. 

As a Parliamentary Reporter, he next chronicled the actions of officials and the political forces that influence them. The rapid expansion of government bureaus, the corruption, inflation and the loss of pride in official morality all were portrayed with concern for the reason as well as the fact. He was dismayed to find that much of the press, reared in a tradition of protest against foreign rule, was largely apathetic to this drama of what leaders of Bengal were making of India’s independence. 

Taking up the challenge in 1956, he began a weekly column entitled Nepathya Darshan, or “Scenes Behind the Curtain,” which gave the angry and dissatisfied Bengali intellectuals and poor men alike their first effective means of voicing legitimate grievances. Instilling hope in an atmosphere of deepening frustration, he meticulously documented and exposed more than 250 cases of abuse of power in high levels of government. The result was the dismissal, demotion or initiation of legal action against some 50 delinquent officials. The column also aroused constructive public debate of social maladies by its examination in depth of causes and possible remedies. 

An Indian leader in the use of this journalistic skill, his reporting bespeaks a deep concern for human welfare. With uncompromising integrity and rare boldness he has upheld high ethical standards for his profession as a guardian of the public conscience. 

In electing AMITABHA CHOWDHURY to receive the 1961 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism and Literature, the Board of Trustees recognizes his scrupulous and probing investigative reporting in protection of individual rights and community interests.

It is not merely an award or honor that you have chosen to bestow on me. I have really been asked to accept a task, a task to live up to such estimations that Ramon Magsaysay had of an honest man. Friends, at this moment I have a deep, somber feeling within me, as if I am entering a temple, as the Hindus do, to be initiated. It is therefore more than overwhelming, I feel caught by my heartstrings, as I am led to approach one of the purest, noblest and highest initiations of my life — an initiation into the ideals of this great man. 

As I stand before you in this assembly today I also realize with deep humility that my function here is that of an instrument, an instrument which is being used to demonstrate the basic unity of two great traditions. History sometimes chooses very common examples to demonstrate in a flash that which is not always perceived — the great and basic unity of human ideals. I am thus perhaps required by destiny to represent the unity of two ideals pursued in two different countries, one by man individually through his heroic life, and another by a group of men through generations of their fearless writings. 

Looking behind our contemporary success and high ethical standard of journalism, one would find the noble history of men who suffered the uttermost for the cause of human liberty. Therefore, in bestowing this honor on me I have no doubt that you have actually honored this tradition which is my proud inheritance. 

It is almost half a century back that Rabindranath Tagore won for India the first international recognition in literature. He was able to instill a confidence among writers in national languages, as in a different way did your great martyr, Jose Rizal, who lived and worked in about the same period as that of Tagore. However, for the other branch, that is Bengali journalism, a continuous struggle and enterprise for nearly half a century more was necessary to keep pace with the excellent performance of Bengali literature. During these years journalism in the national language has championed the cause of the common man, his liberty and his right to live a decent life. It has been the vehicle of expression of a powerful and at the same time a reflective intelligentsia. From the winning of the Nobel Prize by Tagore it is now nearly half a century later that through your generous country our enterprise is being internationally recognized. For many of us it is a matter of great happiness that you recognized our efforts in the national language press and honored it in the same year when the birth centenary of one of the greatest products of Indian literary genius is being observed. 

I am also grateful to you for having chosen an Asian language for this unique distinction. That you have focused attention of the whole world on the languages of the masses of Asia has been deeply appreciated by my countrymen as well as by many other fellow Asian journalists. This I should say was the most predominant sentiment that emerged from the thousands of congratulatory messages received by me, and I, on their request, convey their congratulations to you for this most invigorating inspiration that you have instilled in us, the journalists of the language press in Asia. I sincerely believe that the future of the masses and the success of their democratic desire will largely depend on the growth of powerful newspapers written in the mother tongues of the masses. Such newspapers can be pillars of democracy in this continent able to carry messages for and from the remotest of villages and minds. 

To my colleagues and fellow journalists I would say that we have a battle to win against the coalition of social iniquities. The present experiments of democracy will falter and the freedom earned with the blood of martyrs will be lost if we fail to declare a war against the seething corruption that is around us, the oppressive bureaucracy and the inflictions that are daily being imposed on the poor and voiceless multitudes of this continent. For this war, we have a weapon. That which has the lightness of the winds and the force of a thunderbolt, a pen.

One part of this huge mass and mind was once illuminated by a man who was and still is for them a living faith. He lived and struggled for and to a large extent was able to achieve the same ideals which, in the case of the very best of newspapers, is still an aim to aspire for. 

It is not so much therefore for the citation, nor even for the award, but for the opportunity of having a medal which carries the imprint of this noble man that I have waited so eagerly. Give this to me to keep closest to my heart so that it will never falter for fear or for favor. May the destiny of history lead me and you and all ever nearer to the ideals of the man who lived humbly and died immortal.

A refugee from Shanghai, where he had spent his life, Gus BORGEEST and his Chinese wife, Mona, landed in Hong Kong in 1951 with two Hong Kong dollars in their pockets. Having to start over himself, he was yet mindful of the needs of others in more dire plight in keeping with his Quaker philosophy: “My neighbor is my business.”

Formerly a production expediter in a textile mill, he soon found employment in the Government vegetable marketing and social welfare agencies. For thousands of families crowding into Hong Kong from the mainland, there then was little more in store than a food dole and shelter in a squalid squatter camp until they could be accommodated in housing the Government was beginning to construct. 

Visiting regularly these impoverished refugees, he learned that many once were proud farmers. Convinced that “welfare with best intentions was subtly enslaving them,” he determined to find a self-help route to rehabilitation that would be economically sound and restore their dignity. 

All good land was occupied, but he found an island of 200 rockstrewn acres so barren no one lived there. Leasing it from the Government for 180 Hong Kong dollars a year, he then studied books and sought the help of official agriculturists to learn about farming marginal land. 

Using savings of two frugal years to buy tents, cots, a few tools and some food, he, his wife, their adopted daughter and two refugee families transported themselves by rented sampan to the island in mid 1953. Defying the first stormy night, he renamed their new home “Sunshine Island,” symbolic of his aim to bring light to darkened lives. A typhoon washed out the first grass huts and tediously planted gardens. Financial crises were chronic. Some new arrivals were unprepared for the hard labor. But the struggling settlement survived to prove its practicality. 

As the venture became known, students from refugee colleges and Royal Air Force men volunteered to dig fishponds, build irrigation ditches and reservoirs. The Agriculture Department has given valuable advice on farming and piggery and the Forestry Department is planting 10 acres annually with trees. Tinned food, milk and cash have come from religious groups, CARE and private donors. Social welfare agencies now select and sponsor refugee families for training on “Sunshine Island.” 

Today, there is a steady turnover of refugees who are taught the skills of resourceful self-support and “graduated” with small savings to pioneer on Government-assigned plots on other marginal land in the Colony or to enter the construction industry. A modest effort in terms of the enormous refugee population, “Sunshine Island” is heartening evidence that one man can instill among his fellows the will to conquer adversity. 

With each passing year there has been material progress. But more consequential than the new stone houses replacing grass huts is the example of human concern and courage that has become the Island’s trademark.

In naming GUS BORGEEST to receive the 1961 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the Board of Trustees recognizes his establishing of a model for resettlement and rehabilitation of refugees that enhances their self-respect and productive capabilities.

Let me first greet you all Mabuhay! 

You must please forgive me if my response to the receipt of this Award is a little halting and diffident. I have been in a partial state of shock ever since I learned that this very great honor has been bestowed upon me. 

Whilst your late President, Ramon Magsaysay, was still alive, his humane work on behalf of the people of the Philippines brought world-wide fame to your country through the high-principled actions of this heroic man. He was of the stature of which the world finds only one such in each generation. His greatness of spirit, his tenderness for his people, his passion to see that everyone, however humble the person may be, should have a better and richer life in this great Republic made, and is still making, an impact that is world-wide. 

You must understand, therefore, how humble, and at the same time how proud, I feel today to have myself even remotely connected with the illustrious name of Ramon Magsaysay. 

There is another point I wish to mention, and it is this. I was amazed to learn that since the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation has been operating, the Trustees of this Foundation have chosen people from all over Asia to become recipients of this Award. To a stranger like myself, I would think that a Foundation, which was established in memory of one of the greatest citizens of the Philippines, would naturally have its awards conferred only upon citizens of the Philippines. And yet, although the Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation are all Filipino citizens, they typify the generosity of you all by selecting people of all nationalities for this tremendous honor which is sometimes called “The Nobel Prize of Asia.” During my very short stay in Manila, I find this attitude absolutely in keeping with the sincere and big-hearted hospitality that you have extended to my wife and myself. 

I can only say, once again, thank you! Salamat Po!

Educated to become a teacher, NILAWAN PINTONG chose the challenge of schooling the women and youth of her country to become useful citizens exercising initiative in public affairs. 

With a sense of this mission, she left the security of government service to help build a magazine that would foster a greater community consciousness among Thailand’s women. From this beginning grew also a youth magazine, a news weekly and a series of radio programs—all championing a new awareness of civic needs. 

From these journalistic efforts she extended the scope of her concern to creating community organizations. She stirred printers, librarians and writers to a higher conception of their professional role. She aroused women to realize that they could do something about education for the young and urgent social needs; among their achievements was a program enabling Thais in depressed areas to help themselves. For citizenship training she organized a youth club. 

A distinctive contribution has been her Ounakorn Center. It provides a friendly headquarters and free office services for struggling organizations of students, writers and women. And foreign visitors find there a welcome entree to Thai intellectual and cultural life. 

Among Khun NILAWAN’s most consequential achievements has been her quiet shepherding of such new civic ventures to maturity. Objective and fearless in voicing her views, she has been withal a diplomat. Typically serving as secretary, always without pay, she has saved many groups from disastrous pitfalls. She shuns publicity, is seldom photographed, and, yet, her competence, dependability and sound judgment are recognized by persons from all walks of life who seek her advice. 

Lacking personal wealth with which to finance such work, she instead has given unsparingly of her time and energy. So that she could give more attention when needed, she has relinquished her home and now lives in a small room next to her office. Such selflessness has nurtured in others a willingness to serve. 

In electing NILAWAN PINTONG to receive the 1961 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes her volunteer participation and leadership in developing constructive civic enterprises that have given women a new and creative role in Thailand.

There are wonderful surprises that come our way, at one time or another, in our life. And to me this prestigious award is the greatest and most wonderful surprise of all. 

The honor and distinction bestowed upon me makes me feel most grateful and makes today the most memorable day of my life. This auspicious and noble event reveals once again to all men the undying spirit of greatness of the late President Ramon Magsaysay. The national loss of the Philippines five years ago has become the world’s gain in consciousness of the spirit that is sublime. The noble standard set by his leadership inspires universally. His greatness transcends the barrier of race, nationality or creed. Like a spiritual torch, it burns bright, lighting eternally the path for men and women who believe and work selflessly for a better human society, a society where justice, peace and freedom prevail. The world has been vitalized by its impact ever since, and again today. 

To be honored with the Ramon Magsaysay Award for me is not personal pride alone; my country, Thailand, also rejoices with me. The philosophy and meaning of the award has focused the attention of Thai society as a whole on the true spirit of service. Royal graciousness came in the congratulations from Her Majesty Queen Sirikit, the great patroness herself of national public service. The first lady, Tan Puying Vichitra Dhanaraj, wife of the Prime Minister, extended her felicitations. The press and leaders of philanthropic and civic organizations as well as officials in the Civil Service, Army, Navy and the Air Forces joined with men and women who are private citizens in expression of awareness of the spirit behind the award announcement. Thailand also rejoices in the recognition for the outstanding service of the Awardee for International Understanding for her international citizenship, because the winner of the Award makes our country one place of her residence. Her selfless devotion to the cause of the blind in Thailand opens the mind and the eyes of our public to a new vista of service of man for man. The Ramon Magsaysay Award has thus brought about a closer tie of friendship and sentiment between our two countries. Today we are walking the path which leads to further fulfillment. 

We feel more assured of those spiritual values which need mutual strengthening to withstand the misinterpretation of truth, justice and freedom. 

The world has undergone all forms of phenomenal changes, but that which endures is mankind. No matter how powerful are man-made weapons, they can not completely destroy their maker. In man, the most powerful element is the noble spirit. Compassion and loving kindness will always win over hate and violence which are of lesser quality. 

Today another great satisfaction for me is the opportunity to meet and know of men and women who have proved that the spirit exists as a binding force for selfless service to their country, people and ultimately to the world. 

The spirit and philosophy behind this award points out the fact that mankind needs more than ever the manifestation and fortification of the true ideals of freedom and prosperity for all. 

In my very humble belief, we are progressing on the path once marked out by the exemplary life of Ramon Magsaysay, great statesman not only of the Philippines but of the world, for the greatness of his spirit is the true greatness of man. 

My most humble reverence goes to him whose name will forever inspire. The Board of Trustees have won my most sincere thanks for keeping their precious and noble trust with the utmost responsibility.

Dr. RADEN KODIJAT had reached a normal retirement age when he was asked, in 1950, to organize and direct a national yaws control program that is today larger than the total of all other such efforts in the world. Knowing the enormity of the task ahead, he accepted without hesitation this call to the service of his Government and people. 

A member of the Public Health Service since 1914, Dr. KODIJAT had long fought this highly contagious scourge of the rural areas in the moist tropics that corrodes the flesh and finally attacks the bones of its victims. Seeing that clinics filled with patients taking the tedious arsenical cure were reaching only a fraction of those with yaws, he had conducted at Kediri, in 1934, the first experiment in treating an entire population group until all symptoms of infection had disappeared. Discovery of the penicillin treatment made broad extension of his approach practical. It became possible when the new Republic’s request for assistance in a countrywide attack was met by the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization which have provided penicillin, vehicles, medical supplies and technical assistance. 

Carefully investigating every aspect of the problem in order to utilize most efficiently the staff and equipment available, he evolved a program that could function effectively despite the difficulties facing his newly independent nation. Integrated with regular health services, it was in harmony with local needs and overcame the acute shortage of trained doctors by using male nurses and assistants for mass examination and treatment. 

Today at the halfway mark, some 55 million Indonesians, or nearly two out of every three residents of the 3,000 islands in the archipelago, have been examined and more than half of the estimated 12 million cases of yaws have been cured. Now 71 years old, this devoted doctor continues to hold concern for the health of his people above his own and quietly but firmly to manage an endeavor of far-reaching humanitarian and economic consequences through its crucial years. 

In electing RADEN KODIJAT to receive the 1961 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes his dedicated and skillful direction of the massive yaws eradication effort that is freeing his countrymen from a disfiguring and crippling disease.

My election as 1961 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Government Service is a great honor to me. I am glad that I am able to attend these ceremonies so that I can express my thanks personally. 

In the first place, I thank the Board of Trustees for their decision to elect me as 1961 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee and for the Award the Foundation gives me. 

The Board of Trustees based their decision on reports, articles and interviews. I express my thanks to those who wrote the reports and the articles, and those who gave the interviews, because their reports, their articles and their information provided background materials which by the Board of Trustees were considered as being sufficient to be used as a basis for their decision. 

Furthermore, I wish to express my gratitude to all those who from the beginning of my career as a government official until now have successively worked in cooperation with me. In particular, in connection with the yaws campaign, I wish to thank all officials in the Department of Health and the Provincial and Regency Health Services, in UNICEF and WHO, in the Civil and the Village Administration, the school teachers and all others who took an interest in our work. 

I thank them the last, but my gratitude to them is no less. And I do not mention names because there are too many of those whom I should like to mention. Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you.