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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Manual scavenging is blight on humanity in India. Consigned by structural inequality to the dalits, India’s “untouchables,” manual scavenging is the work of removing by hand human excrement from dry latrines and carrying on the head the baskets of excrement to designated disposal sites. A hereditary occupation, manual scavenging involves 180,000 dalit households cleaning the 790,000 public and private dry latrines across India; 98 percent of scavengers are meagerly paid women and girls. While the Constitution and other laws prohibit dry latrines and the employment of manual scavengers, these have not been strictly enforced since government itself is the biggest violator.

BEZWADA WILSON was born to a dalit family in Kolar Gold Fields township in Karnataka state. Although his family had been engaged in manual scavenging for generations, he was spared the labor to be the first in his family to pursue a higher education. Treated as an outcast in school and acutely aware of his family’s lot, BEZWADA was filled with great anger; but he would later channel this anger to a crusade to eradicate manual scavenging.

He started by changing the mindsets of his family and relatives—that being a dalit is not their fate but a status imposed by how society has been organized, and that no human being should be made to do such demeaning work as scavenging. In 1986, he sent a complaint about dry latrines to the authorities of their town, and when he was ignored sent the complaint to the Prime Minister, threatening legal action. As a result, the town’s dry latrines were converted into water-seal latrines and the scavengers transferred to non-scavenging jobs.

He boldly moved his crusade to other states, working with dalit activists, recruiting volunteers for what would take shape as a people’s movement of manual scavengers and their children, Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA). With BEZWADA WILSON as national convenor, SKA was launched in 1993 when he initiated the filing of a public interest litigation (PIL) case in India’s Supreme Court, naming all states, union territories, and the government departments of Railways, Defense, Judiciary, and Education as violators of the 1993 Prohibition Act banning dry latrines and the employment of manual scavengers.

SKA vigorously conducted district-level meetings to raise awareness about scavenging, the caste system, and the 1993 Prohibition Act, and trained local leaders and volunteers for the movement. In 2004-2005, it undertook a mass latrine demolition drive across the state of Andhra Pradesh; exposed the occupational violence faced by female scavengers; and met with officials to demand the demolition of dry latrines and the provision of alternative occupations for scavengers. In 2010, SKA led an India-wide march for the total eradication of scavenging, and again in 2015 undertook a 125-day bus journey across 30 states to mobilize the public against manual scavenging. The movement has since made significant progress. In 2013 SKA successfully lobbied for a new law that includes rehabilitation support for scavengers. It lobbied with local authorities for scholarships for children of manual scavengers, and conducted vocational training for scavengers’ daughters to move them into more decent jobs. It is now involved in crafting a new law that provides financial aid for scavengers transitioning to new occupations.

Fifty years old, BEZWADA WILSON has spent 32 years on his crusade, leading not only with a sense of moral outrage but also with remarkable skills in mass organizing, and working within India’s complex legal system. SKA has grown into a network of 7,000 members in 500 districts across the country. Of the estimated 600,000 scavengers in India, SKA has liberated around 300,000. While BEZWADA has placed at the core of his work the dalits’ self-emancipation, he stresses that manual scavenging is not a sectarian problem: “You are addressing all members of society, because no human being should be subjected to this inhuman practice.” Society itself has to be transformed.

In electing BEZWADA WILSON to receive the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his moral energy and prodigious skill in leading a grassroots movement to eradicate the degrading servitude of manual scavenging in India, reclaiming for the dalits the human dignity that is their natural birthright.

I am extremely happy and humbled by such an honour that everyone across Asia covets.

I am also here with mixed feelings to receive this award you have bestowed upon me.

I come from a socially discriminated community called Dalits, who have faced the worst form of oppression for generations over many centuries. Sadly, this form of oppression, equivalent to slavery, still continues in modern India, a country aspiring to be a world power.

Furthermore, I represent an even more segregated sections of Dalits who have been forced to do the most menial and extremely dehumanizing occupation in the world, that of manual scavenging—the cleaning and clearing of society’s human excreta manually with bare hands.

I therefore am delighted and grateful that you have chosen a humble son of such a community for this prestigious award. As I think of it, my heart swells with joy and my eyes fill with tears.

But the tears of joy are mixed with tears of grief and regret—that hundreds and thousands of my people have died and are dying in the soak pits. Millions more have succumbed gradually to incurable diseases; their kith and kin live in squalor, with little or no opportunities to improve their lives. I can go on and on to describe our pathetic conditions. But my people have also demonstrated their power of resilience.

This award goes to all the women who burnt their baskets to reject manual scavenging. And I dedicate this award to all those who lost their lives while cleaning the sewer lines. In this moment I remember my team members of Safai Karamchari Andolan spread across all states of India. They worked hard, indeed poured out sweat and blood, awakened an almost resigned community, produced evidence to fight our legal battles, lobbied with legislators, pressured an apathetic administration, demolished dry latrines—symbols of national shame—and, in 2010 and 2015, undertook a tedious bus journey traversing the country.

I also want to thank Dalit movements, women’s movements, social, secular and democratic movements, that have been fellow travelers in our journey. We have been natural allies in fighting casteist, patriarchal, and fascist forces.

I value your award as a fitting and significant recognition that will push forward our struggle in a huge way. It will boost my peoples’ determination to put an end to the obnoxious and inhuman practice. With your recognition, we are sure to gain more friends and supporters from across Asia and rest of the world, whose support is necessary to protect human dignity and human rights of all people similarly discriminated and stigmatized anywhere in the world.

In this connection, I wish to humbly remind you that there are now over 260 million people in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe who fall under the “discriminated” based on work and descent. I wish that the world awakens to their plight and support their just struggles.

I end here with what our great leader Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar had said, “Ours is not a fight for wealth or for power. It is the fight for reclamation of human dignity and personhood.” We will march on to annihilate caste.

Let us join hands to tear down the walls that divide humanity on the basis of birth, caste, race and gender and let us restore equality, equity, and freedom of all people.

Jai Bhim! Mabuhay!!

Zakat (“charity”) is a cornerstone of the Islamic faith. It is the obligatory tax on an adult Muslim’s wealth, that is dedicated every year to helping the poor and needy. In Indonesia, with the largest Muslim population in the world, the potential of zakat for wealth distribution and social amelioration is huge. In 2015, the potential zakat collection was estimated at around three percent of Indonesia’s gross national product, or a total of at least USD28 billion. Yet, what was actually collected was only ten percent of this amount. The collection, management, and use of zakat have long been stymied by inefficiencies, corruption, and abuse. The government has worked to regulate zakat management but anxieties remain on questions of transparency, accountability, and effectiveness in serving the poor.

In 1993, Parni Hadi, editor-in-chief of the Indonesian newspaper Republika, started a modest zakat collection drive among the newspaper’s employees, that later expanded to include the paper’s readers and the general public. The results were so encouraging that Hadi and his colleagues formed DOMPET DHUAFA REPUBLIKA (DDR), or “Wallet of the Poor,” which was officially registered as a charity organization and zakat collector. With a strong sense of purpose, DDR sought to transform traditional zakat philanthropy for the poor from simple “charity” to “empowerment”—so that the poor could move from being dependent “recipients” of alms towards becoming wealth creators, and eventually “contributors” of alms themselves. So DDR moved zakat funds from customary practices of charitable giving to social development projects aimed at building self-reliant communities and capacitating the poor—Muslims and non-Muslims—through programs of economic assistance, health services, education and training, and diverse other activities.

Now independent of Republika and known simply as DD (short for “DOMPET DHUAFA”) the organization’s economic projects have included building public facilities, support for small and medium enterprises, farm production and marketing assistance, a bank providing preferential loans to the poor, and a training-and-support program that has upgraded the capacities of hundreds of microfinance groups in Indonesia. In the health sector, DD has established free clinics and a free, well-staffed, and well-equipped hospital for the poor that is the first of its kind in the country. In education, DD annually supports 400 poor university scholars; runs a free boarding high school for poor but deserving students; and operates a teacher training school, as well as a vocational and entrepreneurship center that trains a thousand people per year.

From the start, DD’s leaders have addressed the ills besetting the credibility and impact of the country’s zakat institutions: they scrupulously practice transparency and full accountability in their financial and governance systems, set and maintain professional standards in their zakat collection, and carefully target those in greatest need, and adopt marketing strategies that encourage and facilitate giving from Muslims within the country and elsewhere in the world. As a separate initiative DD has generously shared its expertise, training other zakat collection organizations to modernize their operations and professionalize the work of their zakat managers.

DOMPET DHUAFA has grown phenomenally to become the largest philanthropic organization in Indonesia today, in terms of donations received. In 2015, DD collected total donations equivalent to USD 20.2 million With offices in twelve Indonesian provinces and five foreign countries, DD’s 200 employees, and 10,000 volunteers have reached thirteen million beneficiaries as of 2015, of whom at least twenty percent have moved out of poverty. With the public trust it enjoys and its work in supporting other zakat organizations, DD continues to raise the level of zakat donations in Indonesia. But just as important, it has widened the space and opportunity for Indonesians, through zakat, to become “good Muslims.” It has created as well an inspiring model, for other nations and religions, of disciplined, sustainable faith-based development.

In electing DOMPET DHUAFA to receive the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes the organization and its leaders for redefining the landscape of zakat-based philanthropy in Indonesia, unleashing the potential of the Islamic faith to uplift, irrespective of their creed, the lives of millions.

We would like to convey our gratitude for the trust that Ramon Magsaysay Foundation has given to Dompet Dhuafa Republika in receiving this noble award, the Ramond Magsaysay Award 2016. I’m standing here today as the representative of Mr. Parni Hadi, our founder and chairman, who regrettably is unable to be present here this evening with us because he needs to have medical check-up as suggested by doctor.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have just obtained the information that Dompet Dhuafa Republika is chosen to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award last July. The news definitely overjoyed us and added to our bliss, since per July 2016 Dompet Dhuafa Republika has reached its 23 years of age working for the people of Indonesia and the World. On 2nd of July 1993, inspired by the struggle carried out by the Corps Dakwah Pedesaan who continuously made an effort to resolve social issues in the poor area of Gunung Kidul, the founder of Dompet Dhuafa, Mr Parni Hadi, who also publisher and editor in chief of Republika Daily Newspaper decided to establish a caring program for the poor. The program that materialized as a rubric in the Republika Daily Newspaper was named Dompet Dhuafa. It was in 1994 where DD was established as a foundation and officially named Dompet Dhuafa Republika, abbreviated as DDR or just DD. It is an independent foundation, separated from the Republika management and any other political organization. To all journalists in the Republika Daily Newspaper, the responsibility to take part in social mission was a form of implementation of the prophetic mission. This is called Prophetic Journalism.

Dompet Dhuafa in Indonesian literally means Wallet/Purse for the Poor. It also stands for Donation for Destitutes (Dhuafa). DD means Dignity and Devotion. We are trying to uplift the dignity of the Poor as an action of Devotion to Allah, God, the Almighty.
We present this award to DD- Destitutes and Donors as our thanks of honor. DD is a manifestation of Prophetic Journalism (Journalism of Love). DD is an organization of LOVE for all human beings and all creatures.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dompet Dhuafa Republika has a strong ideal to encourage Zakat, Infaq, Shodaqoh and Waqf as one of solutions to resolve poverty problems and other social issues in Indonesia as a country with the largest Moslem population in the world. Dompet Dhuafa Republika attempts to develop a more professional zakat management so it can give more significant effect to the welfare of the people.

Since the starting of our endeavors in 1993, until today there are 128,000 donors that support Dompet Dhuafa’s activities. Their supports have given benefits to almost 13,000,000 poor people through 522 services, empowerment and advocacy programs in the field of economy, education, health and social. Yayasan Dompet Dhuafa has also been supported by dedications and sincerities of 10,000 volunteers. Dompet Dhuafa has opened branches and representative offices in 17 provinces in Indonesia and also in 5 countries. With no State territorial boundaries, Dompet Dhuafa Republika has also deployed a range of programs in 31 countries including taking part in helping the disasters victims in Illigan and Tacloban Philippine. With remarkable collaboration from various parties, it is worthy to be conveyed that the achievements accomplished by Dompet Dhuafa Republika are the results of hard-work, caring-work and the work of a lot of people since this organization was found.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we dedicate this award to all the poor people who have the passions and work-ethos to rise despite the limitations. We also would like to present this award to donors both individuals and institutional who have earnestly lend a hand and move together to lift up the dignity of the poor. We also wish to dedicate this award to all actuators of zakat institutions and social organizations to continue strengthening their devotions in creating a better society.

The Philippines is reputed to be one of the countries in the world where government corruption is highest, where large state resources are diverted to private gain and corruption is so “normalized” as to corrupt public morality itself. Since 1950, government has had a series of anti-corruption bodies. Weakly institutionalized, lacking in will, and often corrupted themselves, the record of these bodies has been dismal. The creation of the Office of the Ombudsman (OMB) in 1987 was to be a major step in the anti-corruption campaign, yet again failed to live up to its promise. The justice system is extremely sluggish; cases have mostly involved low-level officials and employees; and public confidence in government’s resolve to root out corruption is practically non-existent. This was the daunting challenge that CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES faced when she was appointed Ombudsman in 2011.

Born to a family of lawyers, she dreamed of becoming a lawyer herself, and pursued the dream in impressive fashion: passing the bar in 1969, working in the Department of Justice, becoming a regional trial court judge, a justice in the Court of Appeals, and finally a Justice of the Supreme Court. Through her long career, she demonstrated the qualities of the quintessentially good public servant: professionalism, competence, integrity, and equanimity in the face of difficult challenges. She set a standard for herself when she said: “The most difficult case to decide is the most fulfilling achievement. However you decide it, you come to a certain point that you think will spell the difference.”

She brought these qualities to her work as Ombudsman. In her strict, scrupulous style, she professionalized and upgraded OMB’s capabilities; revolutionized its anti-corruption program to include the designation of deputy ombudsmen for environmental concerns and for investment-related problems; and improved its responsiveness to calls for public assistance. Setting a target of zero backlog in the investigation or adjudication of cases and disposition of all requests for assistance, the backlog has already decreased and she expects to hit the target by 2018. She raised the independence and quality of OMB’s fact-finding investigations, evidence build-up, prosecution strategies and case management to ensure that meritorious cases are not sabotaged, withdrawn, or dismissed. The results? From 2011 to 2015, the conviction rate of cases handled by OMB before the Sandiganbayan rose from 33.3 percent to 74.5 percent.

She prioritized the filing of cases against high-ranking officials, sending the strong signal that OMB is earnest in its anti-corruption campaign. Under her leadership, OMB has boldly imposed strict administrative sanctions on high officials, filing cases against a former president; a former vice-president; incumbent senators, congressmen, and governors. She is the first Ombudsman to use the waiver in the Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (required of government officials and employees) as basis to secure bank records in impeaching one of the country’s highest officials.

Recognizing that corruption is not just a matter of persons but systems, she took the initiative in creating an integrity management-based program that mobilizes government agencies and the public and addresses the lack of strategy and direction in the overall anti-corruption campaign. She advocated the passage of legislation to strengthen the OMB’s investigative, disciplinary, asset recovery, and preventive powers. All these are part of her resolve to go beyond political tokenism by establishing the framework of an effective anti-corruption campaign.

Her work is unfinished, and the challenge is not hers alone; but already she has radically improved the efficacy and credibility of OMB, and has shown the way towards a more coherent, concerted action against corruption. Unfazed and quietly determined despite death threats, MORALES, now 75 years old, does not sensationalize her efforts and always works within the law even as she pushes its limits. She is, quite simply, an inspiring public servant.

In electing CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES to receive the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her moral courage and commitment to justice in taking head-on one of the most intractable problems in the Philippines; promoting by her example of incorruptibility, diligence, vision and leadership, the highest ethical standards in public service.

I would like to extend my profound thanks to the Foundation for this honor.

Please allow me to break tradition by reading a letter to my grandchildren who call me Grand C:

Dear Ennio and Cece,

Grand C has just received this prestigious recognition.

I am often asked why and how I continue to work. I will now tell you my secret: I draw inspiration and energy from you. I continue working because I want to secure a just and honest society for you and for every Filipino child.

When I retired from the Supreme Court five years ago, I was ready to play the role of a doting grandmother. Called upon to help ensure a better future for our children, over the opposition of those who thought that gender and age were not in my favor, I did not shrink from this responsibility. Because the stark reality is that there are millions of other grandchildren who are being robbed of a bright future by those consumed with greed and lust for power.

This award proves the skeptics wrong. Indeed, gender and age are irrelevant in this crusade, the primary qualification being unassailable integrity, earned through consistent application of the rule of law. I pray that you —and all young Filipinos —imbibe the same moral value and pass it on to the next generation.

Today, we also celebrate the life of President Ramon Magsaysay. In school you will learn that President Magsaysay steered the Philippines to its golden years, his tenure being one of the cleanest and most corruption-free in the history of our country. We should look back to this glorious past as guiding light in our search for leaders of the same persuasion. Children should never lose faith. Children should never lose hope.

Please pray that Grand C and her colleagues at the Office of the Ombudsman will win the fight against corruption. Without the continued support of other stakeholders and most importantly, the family, it will remain an uphill battle.

Thus, I am accepting this award on behalf of my colleagues at the Office for their perseverance in carrying out our constitutional mandate as protectors of the people. I am also accepting this recognition on behalf of all anti-corruption advocates including journalists, civil society workers and good governance volunteers who complement the work of the Ombudsman. They are the real heroes in the fight against corruption.

I hope that our shared crusade results in succeeding generations of Filipinos who will not allow corruption to tear at the protective mantle of the rule of law, the anchor of our democracy. But it is up to us to stay safely anchored, or drift into the dangerous currents of anarchy. It is up to us to earn the distinction of being a society that lives by the credo of President Magsaysay that “those who have less in life should have more in law.”

Ennio and Cece, as you go to bed tonight, know that your grandmother is optimistic that your tomorrow will be a better day.

Laos is slowly coming into its own after decades of war and political instability but governance systems remain fragile and public services woefully inadequate. New prosperity has fueled a tremendous increase in motorized vehicles in the capital city of Vientiane, with its population of 800,000. But the lack of road safety education, strict licensing requirements, traffic rules and their enforcement, and traffic management aids has resulted in a veritable anarchy of cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and tuktuks (motorized tricycles). Compounded by the absence of emergency rescue services, the road fatality rate in Laos is one of the worst in Asia. Thus the Asian Development Bank has cited road use management as a priority need that Laos must address.

In 2007, a small team of volunteers in the Foundation for Assisting Poor People of Lao PDR used a donated ambulance to create “Rescue Vientiane Capital” to provide first-aid service on the city’s roads, but only on weekends. In 2010, Sebastien Perret, a Frenchman living in Laos and a trained paramedic and firefighter, aghast at how victims are left to die because of the utter lack of emergency assistance, joined the foundation as a volunteer. Shortly thereafter, Perret, Laotian Phaichi Konepathoum, and five 15-year-old volunteers, created “VIENTIANE RESCUE” (VR) to operate a free ambulance service on a 24/7 basis, despite the absence of equipment, sponsors, and formal training.

Driven by pure humanitarianism, the VIENTIANE RESCUE volunteers (students and mostly poor Laotians) worked 20 to 168 hours a week out of the house of one volunteer and later a rented bungalow; the volunteers slept in shifts when they were not sleeping on roadsides, often subsisting on nothing but instant noodles, and sometimes unable to respond to calls for help because their ambulance had ran out of petrol. Supported by small private donations and the volunteers’ own pocket money, the first years were extremely difficult. The volunteers had little equipment and few medicines; they would remove and wash bloodied bandages and their only cervical collar once the victim was already in the hospital so these could be reused for the next accident call. At one point they even lost their only ambulance.

By dint of sheer perseverance and the passion to help, the ragtag group of volunteers improved and professionalized its services, acquired more equipment, and expanded the range of its work. Perret produced a basic first aid manual and accessed expert paramedic training for volunteers with the help of Thai partners. Gradually, the group’s heroic work attracted more volunteers and some assistance from local and foreign donors.

Today, VIENTIANE RESCUE Team has a one-truck firefighting unit; a one-boat scuba rescue team, the country’s first; a minivan converted into the country’s first EMS (Emergency Medical Service) ambulance; seven other ambulances; and three more base stations, two made from shipping containers. Its uniformed volunteers now number 200, working a free 24-hour hotline that responds to 15-30 accidents a day. In 2015 alone, VIENTIANE RESCUE responded to 5,760 road accidents, and between 2011 and 2015 the group has helped save as many as ten thousand lives.

As a purely voluntary and homegrown effort, VIENTIANE RESCUE is distinctly inspiring in the selfless dedication of the Laotian youth who have made its work possible despite the odds. Of them, Perret says: “They’re the best people I’ve met in my life … so often they risk their lives to save people they don’t even know.” And he adds: “We do not make miracles every day, but sometimes we do and that’s amazing.”

In electing VIENTIANE RESCUE to receive the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes its heroic work in saving Laotian lives in a time and place of great need, under the most deprived of circumstances, inspiring by their passionate humanitarianism a similar generosity of spirit in many others.

(The response was delivered by Vientiane Rescue Co-founder, Sebastien Perret.)

Today is a strange day. It’s quite hard for us to believe that all of this is real. When we started this service 6 years ago, we had absolutely no expectations, and not a clue about what the future could be. Not because we were pessimistic, but because building an ambulance service from scratch meant investing millions of dollars, highly qualified professionals and equipment. We were 3 adults and 4-5 kids. It sounded unrealistic for us to have other expectations than being just a small first aid team, and do what we could to take care of those dying on the roadside.

At first we heard pessimistic feedbacks from international NGOs, institutions, international organizations and companies we contacted to try to get some support. I’ll always remember an insurance company asking me “What’s your business plan for the next 5 years?”. We also heard: “This is a nice but insane idea”. “Good luck, such a project in such a country is impossible”. But the most common question we had to hear was probably “Who are you?”. “Who are you to think that you could succeed where bigger fish failed?”.

One large government organization actually tried to set up a pre-hospital emergency response ambulance service a few years ago, with a local hospital, invested a lot of money and hired many expensive consultants from abroad. At the end, the project was a failure. So how could a handful of youngsters succeed where a wealthy international organization failed?

At the end, the only thing that helped us to believe in this project was a common idea: we were sure that this was the right thing to do. No matter the hardships, no matter the time it would take. We thought that we had to try. That was the most important. To try.

Today, we haven’t changed. What has changed is that now people do believe in our capacity to move forward, and listen to us.  Today, if we’ve achieved so much, it is still unbelievable for us. Not just only about the quality of the training we get, not just about all the new services we provide and equipment we buy to be able to face any kind of emergency situations. It’s not just about figures on a sheet of paper. Not about statistics. It’s way more than this. It’s about the way we do it. The way we care for the victims of the road.

With love. Love and compassion, when our volunteers do their best to alleviate the suffering of victims and their families.

With respect. Respect because we treat people with the same humanity without any discrimination based on ethnic origin, sex, language, wealth or religion.

With generosity. If in today’s world, generosity can be define by “Give and take”, our volunteers give in an old fashion way. They give their time, their energy, their skills and sometimes even their own money to sustain our service. Some of our volunteers are on stand by 24 hours a day for weeks, taking only one day off per month to go back to their families. This means more than 700 hours a month on stand by. Do you know any other place on earth where you have volunteers giving the way OUR volunteers give, for people they don’t even know?

And passion. An amazing passion that we have, each and every one of us, deep in our hearts. A passion that keep our volunteers on stand by day and night while they have to work besides to earn a living, no matter their tiredness. A passion that binds us together when we witness road crash victims dying in our hands due to the violence of the accident crashes in Vientiane and despite our efforts to resuscitate them. A passion that help us stick together when one of our volunteer is killed by a reckless driver on Vientiane roads, like it happened last December. A passion that transforms people around us. A passion that we are spreading around the world through international TV and newspapers coming to witness the work of our amazing volunteers.

While we’ve been working on this Rescue service for 6 years now, our volunteers are the last people on earth to realize exactly what we’ve achieved.

So, we would like to thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation and its board of trustees today, to give our volunteers the opportunity to be proud of themselves.

The healing power of music is an idea that often does not rise beyond being a platitude, a comfortable truism. But a young artist in India is showing that music can indeed be a deeply transformative force in personal lives and society itself.

T.M. KRISHNA was born in 1976 to a privileged, Brahmin family in Chennai and was trained from the age of six in the aristocratic Karnatik music under masters of the form. Though he earned a degree in economics, KRISHNA chose to be an artist and quickly rose to become a highly-admired concert performer of Karnatik classical music. An ancient vocal and instrumental musical system, Karnatik music started centuries ago in temples and courts but was subsequently ‘classicized’ to become the almost exclusive cultural preserve of the Brahmin caste—performed, organized, and enjoyed by the elite who have access to it.

While grateful for how Karnatik music has shaped his artistry, KRISHNA would question the social basis of his art. He saw that his was a caste-dominated art that fostered an unjust, hierarchic order by effectively excluding the lower classes from sharing in a vital part of India’s cultural legacy. He questioned the politics of art; widened his knowledge about the arts of the dalits (“untouchables”) and non-Brahmin communities; and declared he would no longer sing in ticketed events at a famous, annual music festival in Chennai to protest the lack of inclusiveness. Recognizing that dismantling artistic hierarchies can be a way of changing India’s divisive society, KRISHNA devoted himself to democratizing the arts as an independent artist, writer, speaker, and activist.

In the 1990s, he was president of the Youth Association for Classical Music, that took Karnatik music to the youth and the public schools. To further diffuse classical music, he is at work on a curriculum for teaching Karnatik in schools and communities that have no exposure to it. In 2004, KRISHNA and a colleague created Sumanasa Foundation, that identified gifted, rural youth who lacked the opportunities to develop their talents, and brought them to Chennai to train under well-known artists at the same time that they were getting a college education. In 2008, KRISHNA and a fellow artist started the Svanubhava movement to bring together students of diverse social backgrounds to interact with renowned artists and learn about different art forms, in a program of lecture-demonstrations, film showings, and performances. Held annually in Chennai and featured in various cities, this unique platform has involved thousands of young people from some thirty schools and is now a movement directed by young artists and students and supported by India’s Ministry of Culture.

During the period 2011-2013, KRISHNA brought his passion and artistry to war-ravaged northern Sri Lanka, the first Karnatik musician to tour that region in three decades, and launched two festivals to promote “culture retrieval and revival” in that country. More recently, he conducted, with a prominent environmentalist, a free festival of “art healing” on the beach of Besant Nagar in Chennai that brought together a divided community of dalits, fisherfolk, and upper-class residents, to commune in performances that richly combined musical and dance forms formerly exclusive to the upper class and the dalits.

While much of his work is still ahead of him, he is embarked on an important path. KRISHNA is resolved to break barriers of caste, class or creed by democratizing music, cultivating thought-processes and sensibilities that unite people rather than divide them. Now a leading advocate in India of “music for all and music for a better quality of life,” he says: “Music and the arts are capable of bridging cultures and civilizations and liberating us from artificial divisions of caste and race.”

In electing THODUR MADABUSI KRISHNA to receive the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his forceful commitment as artist and advocate to art’s power to heal India’s deep social divisions, breaking barriers of caste and class to unleash what music has to offer not just for some but for all.

I am a musician; practitioner of Karnatik music—one of India’s two celebrated classical systems. From when I can remember I have been part of the world of this music. Learning the art as many Brahmins do from my childhood years. I was a full time musician by 22 focused on only success as an end.

A set of unusual situations made me delve into my music’s life beyond the learning and singing of it.

What is this music, its history and purpose?

As the questioning progressed it turned into self-questioning. Who am I, what is my social address and who are the people who applaud my music, every movement of it? And it became clear to me that the music was not just about the melody and rhythm; it had been so internalized by the religion, conventions and rituals of the holding community, my community as to make it ours, ours to practice, to preserve, to protect, excluding the rest, especially those on the first step of India’s caste-based social order.

A precious, aesthetic experience can become part of a political and social commentary. This, it was clear to me, was wrong, unfair – unfair to society, unfair to the art. I must, I felt, resist this near hegemony.

Belonging to the holding community made the task anything but easy. The art—my art, which was my very life—was being seen as part of India’s dominant or ‘ace’ culture. A culture which dominates can call itself powerful; it cannot call itself culture. Power is about power, culture is about culture. Every community even the most marginalized has its own exquisite art and hosts multitudes of cultures. Power has tall citadels, culture has a level stage. The tall citadels need to be brought down; the ignored artistic traditions brought on to the proscenium stage.

Democracy demands that society’s wealth, physical and cultural be shared with openness, respect and love. This calls for empathy and not just tolerance; an embrace not putting up with one another.

Cultures are not bound by the lines that we draw on a map. It is in fact art that reveals to every human being inhabiting this complex yet beautiful planet that we have similar struggles and celebrations. But to truly sense this oneness we need to detach art traditions from socio-political constructions.

My journey in this direction has just begun and will proceed with awareness and constant learning. This award has reassured me that the art experience is seamlessly linked to life. I would not be here without the guidance and support of so many of my fellow-journeyers. This award comes to me in name alone, but belongs to the great music tradition that has nurtured me and has led me, with many others, to experience its majesty, and has opened not one but an infinity of windows to the mystery called life.

I will conclude with a few lines from a Karnatik song. A few words about it.

In the 19th century, the Tamil composer Gopalakrishna Bharati composed a musical opera describing the struggles of the Dalit Hindu saint Nandanar (6th – 7th century). In this song from the opera, Nandanar seeks entry into the temple to be in the lord’s (Siva) presence and celebrate him in song. We must remember that Dalits were not allowed inside Hindu temples even until the early part of the 20th century.

Today, in 21st century India, Dalits are demanding access, not into temples that are no longer closed to them, but into the architecture of opportunities, rights and power-sharing. Today’s Nandanars are stronger, organized, aware of their rights, far more powerful and impactful. The struggle for marginalized communities—across the globe—to ensure respect and equality in every sphere of living, be it the political, social or religious, unfortunately still finds doors closed.