Becoming and remaining an honest, effective and forthright writer in developing countries is a difficult and hazardous career. It is not only governments, sensitive to their local and international images, who try to curb and influence what is printed and broadcast. Every political and economic pressure group jealously seeks to foster its case. Publishers often are financially shaky and writers are commonly underpaid; both face the quandary of how to survive and be true to their profession. 

Since India’s independence 34 years ago, Calcutta and the hinterland of West Bengal have been perilous yet challenging arenas for writers. Heirs to the great Bengali cultural and literary tradition enhanced by giants like Rabindranath Tagore, they feel a deep obligation to pursue the finest artistic and intellectual standards. Yet traumatic social pressures make for a modern violence—reminiscent of the ancient terrorism of the thuggees—of which the chroniclers become targets. 

GOUR KISHORE GHOSH, born 58 years ago in the village of Hat Gopalpur, now in Bangladesh, grew up in this environment of upheaval. His father was an idealist of modest means who took in disabled destitutes from the streets and deserted his family when GHOSH was 18. To provide for his mother and four younger sisters, GHOSH worked as an electrician, fitter viseman, air raid rescue mate, petty timber trader, restaurant boy, manager of a wandering dance troupe and a trade union organizer. Attending college briefly in between jobs he passed the Intermediate Examination in Science in 1945. Three years later he became a proofreader on a short-lived weekly literary magazine. From an interim job as a border customs clerk he joined a new daily newspaper where his distinctive writing style earned him promotion to editor of two feature sections. 

GHOSH went on to author popular columns in the literary weekly Desh and in Calcutta’s largest vernacular daily, Ananda Bazar Patrika, of which he also became senior editor. With rare courage he portrayed in sharp satire in his News Commentary by Rupadarshi the agony of West Bengal as the Naxalites—a Maoist terrorist movement—from 1969 to 1971 sought power through widespread murder. When the Naxalites notified GHOSH he would be assassinated unless he apologized, he replied in print with heavy sarcasm and kept on writing. In turn, he defended the terrorists’ right to legal due process when the government retaliated with excessive violence. 

After “the emergency” was imposed upon India in 1975, GHOSH shaved his head and wrote a symbolic letter to his 13 year old son explaining his act of “bereavement” over the loss of his freedom to write. Published in Kolkata, a Bengali monthly, this letter caused his arrest, was widely circulated through the underground and became a classic of protest. GHOSH smuggled from prison two other letters on abuses of authoritarian rule before, in his cell, he suffered a third heart attack. His political thesis was: “People remain apathetic to any form of government. Democracy is a word rather than a political fact. We have to take more responsibility to keep democracy alive, especially in an underdeveloped country with masses of poor.” In best-selling fiction written before and after his incarceration he has illuminated the underlying human dilemma of West Bengal, of a talented, emotional people sorely riven by deepseated religious and political differences. 

Although reinstated as a senior editor of Ananda Bazar Patrika after “the emergency” ended and he had recovered from his illness, GHOSH decided that to instill the values essential for future generations of Indians demanded a more focused and higher caliber of journalism. From this conviction and in collaboration with like-minded associates came Aajkaal (This Time), the recently launched Bengali daily he edits. His wife, two daughters and son share his beliefs and his spartan living. It has not been an easy path, but it is the choice for this journalist who would enhance the quality of Indian society which is being shaped by today’s hectic events. 

In electing GOUR KISHORE GHOSH to receive the 1981 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, the Board of Trustees recognizes his sagacious courage and ardent humanism in defense of individual and press freedom amidst pressures and threats from left and right.

That a man like me would be selected as the recipient of a prestigious award like the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, and that I would come and stand before you in a resplendent function like this, was beyond my imagination. My respect for man has grown deeper with experience that ceaseless preaching for human freedom, for doing away with all the fetters that prevent the full and free development of the infinite creativity latent in man, not only brings as its reward pain, suffering and humiliation, but may also have such a satisfying fulfillment as this award. In the world of man, and only in the world of man, can such diametrically opposite things happen. Our poet of whom all of you must have heard, Rabindranath Tagore, was one of the greatest of humanists whose whole life was devoted to understanding the wonder that is man. A line of a song of his comes to my mind in this gathering. It says, “He wields the sword with one hand while with the other he gives benediction.”

In different countries of the world today, so many things of opposite nature are happening to and about man. On one side we find hatred and fear and attempts to fetter man. At the same time, we find spontaneous, irresistible expressions of man’s love and affection for fellowmen. We are filled with awe when we know that these opposites are true at the same time. In Tagore’s language again, “He wields the sword with one hand while with the other he gives benediction.”

It is not only an Indian poet who had this realization. Other greet men in other lands, too, became aware of these conflicting and opposite trends in man from their personal experiences. A great son of the Philippines, Ramon Magsaysay, was such a personality who realized that to be free is human, because man is essentially creative and freedom is the fountainhead of his creativity. Those who have studied his life and work, are fully aware that nothing was more priceless to Ramon Magsaysay than the freedom of man. His own life is the greatest testimony for the fact that an environment of freedom is the sine qua non of the inflorescence of man?s creative genius. 

I said at the very outset that the Ramon Magsaysay Award is a prestigious one. Wherein does its prestige lie? Is it in the money that it carries? The amount of money, no doubt, adds to the value of an award, but does not contribute much to increasing its prestige. It is the name of Ramon Magsaysay, after which the award has been named, that has given it dignity and prestige. Magsaysay fought many a battle to restore unto man his natural dignity. And it is this that endows his name with magnetic attraction. It is this that has enabled the award associated with the name of Ramon Magsaysay to create such a powerful attraction over Asia. It is an attraction of love, of affection, of an ever-widening camaraderie.

Love and affection and camaraderie are also bonds. They are family bonds, not a bondage imposed by the sword. Man never wants to accept the bondage forced by the sword, but he comes forward gladly and willingly to accept the bond of kinship. In my own country I did defy the bondage that is imprisonment. But I have come forward joyfully to accept the bond of love with the Philippines. This is no individual characteristic of mine. It is the universal characteristic of man. That our egos often obstruct realization of this simple and self-evident truth is the tragedy of human society. 

As an Indian and an ardent lover of this beautiful world, I bring to you, the Trustees, to your people and to my fellow Awardees, the tenderest love that overflows my heart and that of my beloved wife for giving us this opportunity of becoming your friends and kin; to be one of you. Please accept this offering of ours and make us thankful.

The lot of amputees and paralytics from polio and leprosy is especially cruel among the rural poor in the developing world where rehabilitative appliances for missing or withered limbs and alternative means of livelihood, are few. Witness to this condition in India is the prevalence of crippled beggars, old and young. Amputation of a foot or leg frequently follows accidents with cars, trains and in factories. Also common are amputations to halt gangrene resulting from poisonous snakebites—a major hazard to farmers who traditionally go barefooted. 

The elaborate artificial lower limbs developed in industrialized countries do not meet the needs of rural Indian amputees. The prostheses are too expensive, they are difficult to get and require the wearing of shoes. If obtained they are frequently discarded because users cannot sit cross-legged, squat or walk on uneven ground. 

PRAMOD KARAN SETHI, born in 1927 in Benares, now Varanasi, India, studied medicine in India and Scotland. Upon returning to his homeland he joined the Sawai Man Singh College and Hospital in Jaipur as Lecturer in Surgery. In 1958, when the hospital asked him to organize and head an orthopedic department required by the National Medical Council, rehabilitation problems of amputees and polio victims became his immediate concern. 

As Dr. SETHI and his colleagues investigated foreign designs of artificial feet and legs, they began to improvise an artificial foot that would respond more like a real one. A breakthrough came when master craftsman Ram Chandra, using an age-old sand casting method, produced a die for a natural-appearing foot which could readily be cast in any size. When large manufacturers refused to cooperate, the local owner of a small tire retreading shop vulcanized a rubber foot in the die. After many trials SETHI used a shell of this foot to encase a totally new design of components which allows flexibility. Eventually the firm-gripping, adaptable “Jaipur Foot” was made in three colors—light, medium and dark brown—and a separation could be made beside the big toe to allow the wearing of sandals. Life-like aluminum legs were also made by villager craftsmen while amputees watched. For polio patients inexpensive, light calipers (braces) were fabricated quickly by skilled but unlettered artisans who were proud to be socially useful. 

Although relatively cheap, the new devices were still beyond the means of the penniless cripples who began desperately making their way to Jaipur as word of the new prostheses spread. In 1975 the Mahavir Society for the Physically Handicapped offered Dr. SETHI monies raised during a large Jain religious festival. Endowment funds were established so that each gift of 2,500 rupees (US$312) earns annually enough interest to buy an artificial limb and to help pay for a railway ticket for those with a long journey home. The number thus assisted each year has grown from 59 in 1975 to 2,035 in 1980. 

While demystifying the medical profession by including artisans and patients in the rehabilitative process, SETHI and his associates continue to devise better artificial lower limbs; patients can again farm and climb trees. In the Rehabilitation Reseach Center amputees may join in literacy classes and receive occupational counseling while finding new comradeship as they learn together to walk with fitted limbs. When a formerly legless man bicycles off to his village wearing his new limb and Jaipur Foot he is a renewed man with an opportunity to become a productive participant in his community. 

In electing PRAMOD KARAN SETHI to receive the 1981 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the Board of Trustees recognizes his application of his surgical genius and his joining of doctors, craftsmen and community in a popular program enabling the crippled and limbless to resume near normal lives.

I am deeply indebted to the Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for the honor they have done me. In effect they have honored our small team of doctors and artisans and the community of my town of Jaipur without whose contributions it would have been impossible for me to do the kind of work we are doing. 

For years our work went almost unnoticed because there was nothing exotic or glamorous about the simple, almost austere technology which was associated with it. It was the occasional pat on our back by some of our distinguished visitors and the unconcealed joy exhibited by the large number of our poor, rural patients which sustained our faith and enthusiasm. This prestigious award, however, has suddenly lent credibility and legitimacy to our efforts and hopefully, our research institutions and planning bodies will now be compelled to carry out some hard reappraisal of their priorities. 

For too long we, in the developing countries, have looked towards the advanced nations for selecting areas of research. There is a deepseated desire on the part of our research workers to win applause in an international gathering of experts. The needs of the poor, the downtrodden and the underprivileged are constantly being overlooked. This has distorted our priorities which are leading, if anything, to a heightening of the contrast between the rich and the poor. I find the Magsaysay Award as a solitary shining example where importance is given to those efforts which work towards a more humane and just social order. 

One word about the “Jaipur Foot.” It is not the technical virtuosity of its design features which excites me. Better designs will soon overrun it. I value it because it represents the first major departure in our thought processes and our value system. Instead of looking to the West for our inspiration, it enabled us to look to our poor peasant for his approval. It taught us the way to tap creativity, innovation and participation from our humble and underrated craftsmen. We realized, as many others doubtless already have, that education should not be confused with institutional schooling, and that creativity is not a prerogative of the elite. The lack of financial resources is not always an obstacle to useful work, and the response of the community can be startling once the members realize that your work is meaningful and relevant to them. The work on the “Jaipur Foot” has given us the courage to be self-reliant and to question orthodox dogma. It has taught us that the demystification of professional knowledge is a powerful tool to allow us to draw on a very large reservoir of talents which otherwise continue to lie dormant. 

The Jaipur Foot, thus, is not merely a technical innovation. It represents a departure in our development strategies. The results of this strategy are already apparent in many other innovations for the disabled. The realization that an identical approach can be utilized with great effect in the entire field of rehabilitation medicine is now becoming clear to us. Other individuals and groups can refine and develop these ideas and test them in different situations. They can have the assurance that they will be watched with interest by the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation.

During the seven and a half centuries since the Thai peoples migrated from the north they were periodically decimated by cholera, plague and smallpox epidemics following floods in the productive central plain; malaria, yaws, gastroenteritis and intestinal parasites were endemic. Christian missionaries and doctors from the Rockefeller Foundation bringing modern medicine to the kingdom had to overcome superstition among the elite and ignorance among commoners?who drank from the same canals where they bathed and dumped refuse. Thereafter medical schools and clinical practice steadily improved and in the 1930s the new constitutional government regulated markets, abattoirs and crematoria, and instituted standards for licensing and training pharmacists and physicians. The kingdom today has an increasing number of distinguished medical doctors. 

Thailand, however, shares with her South and Southeast Asian neighbors the continuing problem of trained doctors and good hospitals concentrating in the capital and other major cities. Like medical practitioners elsewhere, many doctors tend to treat their profession as a business and even a government-salaried physician assigned upcountry usually attends most readily to his social peers. 

Dr. PRAWASE WASI, in his rise from poor farmer’s son to university professor, has shown that the medical profession offers an opportunity to serve others and one’s country consequentially. Born 50 years ago at Kanchanaburi in the Khwae River Valley near Burma, PRAWASE saw as a boy that the rich could do something about their lives while the poor were helpless, and he vowed to aid them. He worked his way through school and received the gold medal for the highest academic achievement in his class at the government Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital, University of Medical Sciences, from which he graduated in 1955. After three and a half years of advanced study in hematology at the University of Colorado, and in human genetics at London University, he returned in 1961 to join the Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital, in the newly named Mahidol University of which he is Vice Rector for Planning and Development. 

Dr. PRAWASE is one of the world’s leading hematologists, most notably identifying the genetic mechanism of alpha thalassemia, a blood disease prevalent among Thais and other Southeast Asian and Mediterranean peoples. He has published more than 100 articles in scientific journals, and scientists come from around the world to work with him. 

Equally public-health oriented, he edited Handbook for Health of the People to which he and 10 prominent physicians, pharmacists and public health doctors contributed practical advice for rural and urban families. His Household Doctor is a compilation of his answers to medical questions published in a popular magazine. He is also editor and publisher of the monthly Folk Doctor magazine. Ever concerned that medical services should meet the needs of all, he campaigned against official plans to build four 1,000-bed hospitals rather than a number of simple clinics within the reach of villagers. He won provision for a hospital in every district in the current five-year national health plan, and helped organize training for village headmen and Buddhist monks in primary health care. 

Withal Dr. PRAWASE’s greatest contribution is his inspired teaching. To his medical students he advocates: “go where the problems of health are most urgent; among the poor mostly in rural villages.” His focus upon community health — along with heightened social awareness among students and concern with rural problems gradually being shown by other teachers — has resulted in an increasing number of medical graduates making careers in the rural areas. 

Gentle in manner and modest in lifestyle, as is his physician wife, he has become the model of the dedicated medical practitioner whose goal is service. 

In electing PRAWASE WASI to receive the 1981 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes his research contributions to medical science while prompting his profession to make modern health care available to the poor.

The Award is greatly appreciated, not so much for myself, but more for the recognition of the principles shared by my friends in Thailand. There are many good and able people in the Thai Government Service, although the impossible bureaucracy is not so conducive to making those qualities as apparent and valuable as they should have been. We do humbly share the late President Magsaysay?s faith in human values, which, upon being genuinely preserved and promoted, have unlimited power for creativity necessary for humanity to last and prosper. It is the wisdom of this Foundation to create for their beloved President a mechanism to propagate enthusiasm in human value development throughout Asia and, no doubt, beyond. 

A great majority of the people in the world today are still living miserable lives, plagued by poverty, not having enough to eat, poor housing or no housing, lack of proper education, ill health without adequate health care or the ability to help themselves. However, knowledge and technology are already available or will be available, to make health for all possible in the not too distant future if national management and mobilization of human resources are well carried out. 

Thailand has many modern big hospitals staffed by doctors famous in various fields of specialty. But these hospitals are too overcrowded with patients to give good care. After long traveling at great expense and painful waiting, each patient may receive only one or two minutes of a doctor’s time; this cannot be considered good medical service. But the majority of the ill are either too poor or too far away to come to the hospitals. Thus the overall picture is that the majority do not have access to medical care and, for the minority who can make it to the hospitals, the care is of poor quality. This is because the health system, as in many other countries, is upside down. Its emphasis is more on big hospital setups rather than on community-based health care. 

There is an urgent need to expand broad-based community health care. This should consist of primary health care and small health centers or small hospitals located near people’s homes. For primary health care to be successful, all community resources must be mobilized. The people in every house? monks, schoolteachers, workers, etc., must be trained in primary health care. If this is well carried out 90 percent of the health problems will be taken care of, giving the big hospitals an opportunity to improve their medical service. Thus the key to success in health care development in a great majority of countries is to expand primary health care and the small health centers, with the support of more sophisticated levels of medical care, and not build more expensive and inefficient big hospitals. This principle should be appreciated by all concerned with the well-being of the country. 

With hatred toward none and compassion for all, we shall strive together in the endeavor to achieve the noble goal of upgrading the quality of life of the people, as envisioned by the late President Magsaysay as well as by many wise citizens of the world, both before and after him.

Mobilizing the modest savings and the shared concern of many is the secret to generating capital for all types of progress. The key questions, however, are who will manage and who will use this capital. Small funds well used often can accomplish more than large loans encumbered by bureaucratic restraints. Group savings also induce people to think ahead for their own and a national future, rather than spend immediately all they earn. 

Organizations to accumulate savings by members were informally operating centuries ago in several of Asia’s ancient civilizations. It was the Germans in the mid-19th century, however, who first institutionalized credit unions. From Scandinavia and the Rochdale community in England, the cooperative idea spread to Canada and America and both American and European missionaries organized credit unions in Asia. By 1970 national and regional associations joined to form the World Council of Credit Unions, headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A. 

Sung-Ga, South Korea’s first credit union, was inaugurated in May 1960. It was inspired by the ideas and efforts of Maryknoll Sister Mary Gabriella Mulherin, who had been influenced by the Antigonish Movement in Canada. AUGUSTINE JOUNG RYUL KANG, who became the first president of Sung-Ga, and his associates were concerned with shifting the emphasis in postwar Korea from relief to self-help. Through seminars they determined that a cooperative offered the greatest promise of developing common bonds based on close human relationships. 

From a start of 28 members in this first credit union, the movement in Korea has grown steadily. The Korean Credit Union League by 1980 had a membership of over 800,000 persons in 1,467 credit unions with savings in Korean currency equivalent to some US$200 million. 

Five basic principles were taught to credit union leaders and members: 1) each person is important; 2) every man has the potential to become master of his own destiny; 3) education which calls forth action is the most important; 4) self-help and a cooperative spirit are basic to social development, and 5) working thus it is possible to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor and to help people achieve both spiritual and material happiness. 

When the Asian Confederation of Credit Unions was founded in April 1971 — and affiliated a month later with the World Council — KANG was elected general manager. He became, as he had in Korea, the moving spirit, enlisting devoted organizers of credit unions. He worked in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Nepal, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Singapore and, until 1975, in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. His unerring judgment of people and his skills in patiently establishing amicable feelings among collaborators, in providing creative ideas and in inspiring members, proved as effective elsewhere in Asia as they had earlier in Korea. 

KANG was born in 1923 and educated at Chinnampo, in what became North Korea, and fled south during the Korean War in 1951. His deep commitment to applying Christianity to daily life is at the core of his sustained efforts to make credit unions effective cooperatives for better living. 

In electing AUGUSTINE JOUNG RYUL KANG to receive the 1981 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, the Board of Trustees recognizes his practical democracy and use of regional cooperation to foster economically and humanly sound credit unions.

Maraming salamat po! Ikinagagalak ko pong makilala kayo! (Thank you very much! I am so glad to be here with you!)

I feel that the languages are not at all sufficient to express my sincere gratitude to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this award. Yet, I must be frank. You puzzled me when you chose me for this honor.

As soon as I was notified of the good news by the news agency, I was surrounded by mass media people. Among the questions they asked me was, “What was the reason, do you think, that you were given the award?” The question frightened me. I honestly answered them, “I do not know.” Some of their facial reactions embarrassed me, and I even felt sorry for the Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for electing me.

While I was interviewed, and in the several articles that appeared m our Korean papers, the credit union movement was mentioned very frequently. Gradually I got used to the fact that this award was given because of my contribution to the credit union movement in Asia. This comforted me a lot.

In my work for the credit union movement I always remind myself of the following points: we must cooperate with each other, we must work together in peace. Governmental and non-governmental organizations, religious and nonreligious, clergy and laymen, old and young, yellow, black, brown and white, men and women, developed nation and developing nation—we are all born for this—we are destined to spend our lives together, in peace.

When there are two or more people working together, we can accomplish something only if we work together cooperatively, peacefully. The more people there are, the more we need to act in an orderly manner, in justice, in love. These attitudes are evoked naturally when people belong to and work together for the credit unions.

I received hundreds of congratulatory messages from my fellow Koreans as soon as the award was announced. And what made me most happy was that this event was truly promoting the credit union movement in so many ways.

Now I accept this award as a warning as well as an encouragement to continue to do my work better and better each day. Yes, I will do my best to make this meaningful award truly meaningful.

Once again, maraming salamat po. Mabuhay ang Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation! Paalam na po. (Thank you very much. Long live the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation! Goodbye.)

Orphans, the blind, mentally deranged and the aged, lepers, cripples and other handicapped persons suffered neglect during the early decades of Indonesian independence following World War II. Customarily they had relied upon closely knit, supportive family ties; in stable rural villages family tragedies could be accommodated. However, as fast-paced revolutionary changes shaped a modernizing commercial and industrial state, this social cushion disintegrated, leaving adrift those shunned or least able to compete. 

Indonesian cultural values emphasize shared responsibilities within the village. Muslim, Hindu and Christian teachings also stress care for the needy. Informal welfare efforts, however, have proved inadequate as Indonesia’s population more than doubled to number almost 148 million. Social tensions were aggravated by urbanization as millions flocked from villages into Jakarta and other ballooning cities. 

JOHANNA SUNARTI NASUTION became concerned with social welfare as a girl. Born in Surabaya in 1923, she learned from her Javanese father and Dutch mother of the intellectual currents shattering the old feudal relationships. She was schooled in Yogyakarta and Bandung and in 1947 married the future General Abdul Haris Nasution by whom she has had two children. 

Indonesians sometimes say: “If you want something planned, talk with the men. If you want something done, talk with the women.” In this spirit Mrs. NASUTION pursued her work independent of her husband’s military career, although on occasion their relationship has opened doors. Reaching far beyond her initial work with soldiers’ families, her efforts have been directed with continuity and fidelity to the larger needs of the country. 

The Indonesian National Council on Social Welfare which was organized by Mrs. NASUTION and her associates today includes 23 national nongovernmental groups, 18 provincial coordinating councils of social welfare, 17 schools with social work faculties and 9 national government agencies. Working together are the Muhammadiyah and Aisyiyah — major Muslim organizations for men and women respectively, the Red Cross, Bishops’ Conference, National Council of Churches, Hindu Dharma Council, several federations for the handicapped and similar nonprofit associations. 

The organizational approach Mrs. NASUTION initiated in Jakarta 18 years ago became the model. The National Council guides and assists member organizations in recruiting volunteer workers and experts, organizing workshops, collecting funds and distributing donated food, clothing and medicines. The Council also assists in placing children in families, schools and jobs, and in marketing handicrafts, vegetables and fruits for cooperatives. Management guidance is provided to homes for the disabled, sick destitutes and orphans. The Council helps draw up the welfare portion of the government’s National Development Plan, working closely with the departments concerned to achieve equitable distribution of welfare. All is accomplished by a headquarters of 15 paid staff and 55 volunteers. 

Through her energy, initiative and vision, Mrs. NASUTION has infused her colleagues in their own organizations with purpose and professionalism. Much remains to be done, but the cadre of social workers she has inspired now has tools to aid Indonesia’s least fortunate. 

In electing JOHANNA SUNARTI NASUTION to receive the 1981 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes her leadership of a volunteer movement, institutionalizing social services through cooperation by diverse civic and religious groups, schools and government agencies.

With a prayer of sincere gratitude to Almighty God, I wish to say thank you very much to the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation for selecting me to be among the 1981 Awardees. It never crossed my mind that I might be chosen to receive this honorable award. When the news appeared in the local paper, Kompas, I was taken completely by surprise. 

In recognizing my services, the Board of Trustees has paid tribute to the dedicated works and sacrifices of my fellow volunteers living in different parts of Indonesia, especially those untiringly engaged in the day to day chores of endless social welfare activities. 

With your kind permission, I am happy to accept this honor only as a representative of all my co-workers. On their behalf I wish to express our sincere appreciation for this invaluable honor. 

This is the second time my family has been honored by people of the Philippines. In 1971 Mindanao State University awarded my husband the degree of Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causal The recognition came when he was Chairman of the People’s Congress, striving to restore Indonesian constitutional democracy. 

Centuries of colonial subjugation, a war, and decades of instability left Indonesia with widespread and complex social problems. The combination of physical destruction, backwardness, and neglect, gave rise on the social front to an accumulation of manifold problems which we had to face as we tried to build up our nation and move toward the kind of just and prosperous society stipulated in our constitution. 

During the two decades following independence, our government was kept busy restoring security and order in an effort to defend our national integrity. Meanwhile the Indonesian population continued to swell, reaching almost 150 million at present. During the 1970s and up to the present the primary focus of attention has been on economic development. Under these circumstances social welfare was not given an effective priority. The government budget set aside for this purpose has always been very limited relative to the magnitude of social welfare problems. 

Clearly we Indonesians face an enormous unmet demand for social services. There is a need to nurture self-reliance and encourage the initiatives of the public as a whole in joint efforts with government institutions. 

Fortunately our people are very religious and have a strong sense of family ties and mutual assistance. This is true especially in rural areas where 80 percent of our population live. Therefore our primary objective became to develop widespread social services to be carried out by local communities themselves. In other words we wanted to promote the motivation and organization of community-based social services. 

It is our conviction that efforts in the field of social welfare are likely to bear most lasting fruit if carried out by the government and the people in a spirit of self-reliance. I repeat, development in the area of social welfare has to be executed by all citizens with their government in cooperative efforts based on family spirit. It is this understanding which has inspired the motto of the Indonesian National Council on Social Welfare: Self-reliance and Family Spirit. 

I realize that the more one engages in social work the more one becomes aware of problems that are still more widespread and fundamental. It is not enough to sympathize with people in need. They should be helped to become people who can help themselves, to become respected members of society. It is in this way that we will be able to build a nation and a society where every one has the freedom to strive for a more decent life. 

I pray that our simple efforts breathe of the same spirit that filled President Ramon Magsaysay of whom it is written: “He was a simple humble man, who cared for all people as individuals and believed in their dignity and importance.”