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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Food sufficiency, environment conservation, local autonomy, social equity—these are urgent, bedrock concerns today. These challenges are addressed by governments, development agencies, multilateral organizations, and other institutions, but we have also seen that the most meaningful, impactful actions often come from the ground, from local communities and the people themselves.

An inspiring example is the story of fifty-one-year-old Eugenio Lemos of Timor-Leste. Lemos lived through the turbulent years of his country’s struggle for independence, that saw the Indonesian invasion and the bitter civil war that marked the country’s emergence as a fully independent nation in 2002. Such difficult beginnings devastated the economy, leaving 40% of the country’s mostly rural population living below the poverty line. For Lemos, born to a family of farmers, it was a tragic time as well. He lost his father and siblings during the war and had to help his mother in farm work at an early age. It would be his life.

He studied agriculture in a local university and took up such activities as starting a group to promote organic farming. In 1999, an Australian permaculture trainer, who was in Timor-Leste to train farmers in sustainable agriculture, introduced Lemos to permaculture, a holistic system for creating and managing sustainable agrosystems. It was not simply about transferring technologies but the cultivation of an ethos of responsible relations to nature and people, expressed in the words “earth care, people care, and fair share.” Lemos saw that many elements of this system were already present in traditional Timorese culture and he resolved that this was something he would devote himself to promoting among his people.

In 2001, Lemos established Permakultura Timor-Lorosa’e (Permatil). It has three main programs. A Youth Training Program that organizes three-day camps for youth seventeen years old or older, involving learning-and-fun activities in water and natural resource management, farming, aquaculture, and agroforestry. (Another camp for kids twelve to sixteen was later added, with simpler activities like gardening and preparing organic food.)

A School Garden Program implemented in public primary schools in which students tend vegetable gardens and learn composting, natural pest control, seed selection, and other skills. There is also a Water and Natural Resource Management Program that promotes “rainwater harvesting” by building ponds, swales, and terraces that store water, recharge aquifers, and regenerate springs.

Since 2008, the youth camp has trained more than 5,000 youth across the country. The School Garden  Program  has  been  established  in  more  than  250 schools and, since 2015, has been integrated in the national  public  school  curriculum.  Permatil’s  Water  and  Natural  Resource Management Program has been introduced in all thirteen administrative districts of Timor-Leste. More than 1,000 water collection ponds have been built and 300 springs revived, benefitting over 400,000 residents or almost a third of the country’s population.

Charismatic, Lemos works with people from all walks of life—they are drawn by his open, humble, down-to-earth manner. Very much in character, he is an activist, a song writer and a singer who uses his songs as a medium to communicate the social issues he cares about. More than just about methods and techniques, Lemos promotes a whole way of looking at nature and people, particularly among the young. Taking time off for a scholarship in 2008-2010, Lemos earned a master’s degree in community development in Australia. What defines him today is that he is proud and respectful of his culture, grounded in local realities, and draws deeply from traditional knowledge what he finds essential to living. He insists, for instance, that what is needed is not simply “food security” or access to food (often commercial and imported) but “food sovereignty,” the country’s capacity to produce its own food, placing the premium on what is local, natural, and nutritious. Still, Lemos is mindful that what he is doing has lessons beyond Timor-Leste. He says, “My message to people—especially leaders of every country—is, think wisely. Don’t think only of how to create benefits for business without thinking about the impact on the environment. As world citizens, everything we do has an impact on others. We have one atmosphere, one water, one air.”

In electing Eugenio Lemos to receive the 2023 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his indomitable spirit in uplifting the lives of local communities, his vision and passion in integrating local and indigenous cultures in his advocacy for the care of the environment and the well-being of people; and for being truly a man of and for his people, and thus for the world as well.

Lokraik diak.

First of all, I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to the Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for electing me to receive Asia’s premier prize and highest honor, the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

As we all know, man’s impact on our Mother Earth is at a critical crossroads, with many factors severely damaging our natural resources – our agricultural and terrestrial lands, and our marine and aquatic resources. Because of this, the food sovereignty of every country is currently under threat.

For many generations, humans have plundered Mother Earth’s resources in the name of capitalism, and in doing so we have robbed future generations – our own children and children’s children – of water security, of food sovereignty and of a life free of climate change.

The future that they face – a life filled with uncertainty, dangers, threats of displacement and extreme weather events is something I feel extremely concerned about. It is something that we all should be concerned about.

With today’s geopolitics of the current wars between Ukraine and Russia, and Israel and Palestine worsening the global food production and availability, many millions of people will go hungry and suffer from lack of access to quality, nutritious food and clean drinking water.

But through environmental advocacy, skills training and awareness-raising of ecosystem literacy, permaculture and traditional knowledge, we can build new generations of citizens who have the understanding, capacity, and confidence to effectively tackle climate change and its effects.

Young people of the world are key to achieving sustainable development and restoring the long-term viability of our environment across the globe. It is essential that all young people receive equal access to quality education and training, to social justice and quality health services, to protection from violence and abuse and to opportunities for employment and meaningful participation in society.

So, I ask all of us to make a commitment, to join forces and to act together in stopping the causes of climate change and ecosystem destruction. The time to mobilize everyone especially the youth of the world to rise above the environmental challenges ahead is now.

Permatil (Timor-Leste) and Permatil Global are committed to engaging all youths in the practice of permaculture through the PermaYouth in Action movement. This will grow new environmental leaders and equip youth to share the knowledge and skills with their communities. Knowledge and skills to rehabilitate environments, become water, seed, land and food resilient and implement climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.

The impact we can create together will not only restore local environments and offer sustainable local livelihoods but will multiply and spread far and wide – increasing the wellbeing of our communities, entire countries, and our planet, now and into the future.

The change begins with all of us. The time to do so is now.

Permaculture. Everyone. Everywhere.

Obrigado barak!

In a world torn and threatened by wars, the work of advancing and sustaining peace is an urgent imperative. It is also extremely difficult. The issues are complex and often intractable. But through time, conscientious peace-makers have forged and collected the vital tools of conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

Women, in their gendered roles of settling disputes, healing, and nurturing, have risen to the task in many conflict-ridden communities. However, they have typically been left out of the decision-making processes that are crucial in ending wars and transforming the polity.

This is changing, albeit slowly. An exemplar in this shift is Miriam Coronel-Ferrer of the Philippines. Her impassioned engagement in political issues started in the late 1970s, when, as a student activist, she joined the resistance against martial rule. After the 1986 People Power Revolution that toppled the Marcos dictatorship, Coronel-Ferrer felt the need to find peaceful resolutions to the many armed conflicts that continued to divide the country.

With other women peacebuilders, Coronel-Ferrer initiated the drafting of the Philippines’ first National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security. The draft was eventually adopted by the government in 2010 as part of its commitment to the UN Security Council Resolution 1325. The landmark document urges all member states to ensure the protection of women’s rights during armed conflicts, mainstream the gender perspective in peace keeping and peace building, and advance the role of women as peacebuilders at all levels.

In the same year, she joined the government panel tasked to negotiate with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), subsequently becoming its chief negotiator in the latter part of 2012. In this role, she was consistently focused and determined, humble but tenacious, and empathetic and open to the position of others. Soon, she earned admiration and respect for her analytical command of the issues and skill as a negotiator.

In 2014, the Philippine government and MILF signed the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), ushering the transition process that created the new Bangsamoro entity with a more empowered autonomous government. As crucially, the agreement also provided a process for the decommissioning of weapons and combatants and the transformation of conflict-affected areas into peaceful civilian communities.

The CAB has been described by international observers as a model for the integration of gender-responsive provisions and the inclusive participation of women and civil society organizations. Coronel-Ferrer sees this achievement more modestly: “There is no perfect agreement, but we make it more imperfect by leaving women out of the process.”

Coronel-Ferrer’s long-standing peace advocacy has gone beyond the country’s borders. She has since been invited to be part of international teams looking into the conflict situations in East Timor and Cambodia. She had provided support work for the peace programs of the Carter Center in its work on Sudan and Syria. In 2018, she became a member of the United Nations Standby Team of Senior Mediation Advisers, the only one from Southeast Asia so far. In her three years with the UN, she was deployed to support the mediation and preventive diplomacy work of UN missions in places like Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq, the Maldives, and the ASEAN region.

In 2020, Coronel-Ferrer co-founded the Southeast Asian Women Peace Mediators, a pioneering group of women engaged in convening safe spaces for dialogues and supporting mediation initiatives in countries like Myanmar and Afghanistan. Today, this is her main work. In addition, she also sits as member of the board of trustees or advisory bodies of several key conflict resolution initiatives such as the International Crisis Group, the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, the Harvard University-based Negotiations Strategies Institute, and the Peace Treaty Initiative.

“Conflicts,” she wisely observes, “are best resolved not through the annihilation of one party, but by the mutual transformation of all players towards a common vision and shared responsibilities and accountability.”

In electing Miriam Coronel-Ferrer to receive the 2023 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her deep, unwavering belief in the transformative power of non-violent strategies in peace building, her cool intelligence and courage in surmounting difficulties to convey the truth that it is through inclusion rather than division that peace can be won and sustained, and her unstinting devotion to the agenda of harnessing the power of women in creating a just and peaceful world.

It has been 35 days since the outbreak of the most horrendous war yet of the 21st century running its course before our eyes in Israel and Palestine.

Over 20 months of bombardments have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The year before that, the coup of Feb 2021 in Myanmar.

And long before these crises, in many parts of the world, occupiers lording it over other people, regimes using violence against their own.

More than 10,500 people have been killed in Gaza, 1,400 in Israel,—almost half, children. Hundreds of thousands have been forcibly displaced… In the West Bank, the killings are alarmingly spiking up.

In Ukraine, the death toll has reached 9,614 civilians with twice that number injured over the course of 19 months.

Since Myanmar plunged in a civil war with many fronts, an average of 130 civilians have reportedly been killed by junta airstrikes, shelling, gunfire, etc.

I thank the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation for giving me this platform to raise my voice of concern. To draw attention to the desperate need for us to wake up, and to push to find lasting solutions to these nightmares.

To affirm that, might is not right.

The Ramon Magsaysay Awards and its Transforming Leadership program, with its motto on the greatness of spirit, however, is not a platform of gloom. On the contrary, it is a platform to spread the message of hope….

Hope. A beautiful four-letter word pregnant with life’s meaning.

Hope that we find in the stories of efforts that have paved ways out of large-scale, longstanding political violence.

Through stories such as our Bangsamoro peace process. Not a perfect process nor agreement. A very slow one – 17 years of talks and by now 9.5 years of unfinished implementation.

Still, an example that bidding for peace through political negotiations can still produce comprehensive peace agreements, a scarcity nowadays.

An example that, through collaborative action and committed partnerships, a peace agreement can be sustained, and the governance infrastructure for meaningful autonomy, a reordering of the relationship between the national state and the substate created, not only to give life to the principles of the right to self-determination but also to engender more democratic, responsive, participatory politics within and among the Bangsamoro.

Of course, we know that this process will take time. It has to prevail over both conservative and extremist mindsets. It must consequently remove the guns from politics and everyday life. Most important, it has to tame the unruly behavior of the political class, and eventually produce transformative leadership in the next batches of leaders to come.

I thank the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation, its Board of Trustees (past and present), partners, and all those awardees who came before the four of us here because they are what this Foundation is all about.

I thank you for this encouragement to promote the stories of courageous women and men who never tired in building peace, every day, everywhere, for every person, one step at a time through peace and human rights education, mediation, humanitarian work, campaigns, and so on, in every imaginable and yet to be imagined ways. A good representation of them are here with us by the way, my fellow peace advocates.

I offer this recognition to them who keep the faith, the faith that it does happen that history, history will be written by the victors, where the victors are those from all sides who did not forsake our humanity but defended it.

Most important, I offer this to the many women in their communities, often ignored, often sidelined, but now empowered to believe in their own strength and capabilities, in no small way by being part of an evergrowing movement, a sisterhood of peacebuilders, mediators, negotiators, conflict preventers, and transformers.

I said it before and will say it again, sisterhood rocks.

It rocks for peace and justice.

Maraming salamat po.

Healthcare is broadly social and deeply personal, particularly with respect to a costly, high-mortality disease like cancer. Cancer can be emotionally and financially devastating for patients and their families, especially the poor. The problem is compounded in places like the North Eastern Region (NER) in India, a remote, “forgotten,” predominantly rural and agricultural border region where access to medical care is difficult. Even in the region’s leading state Assam, where cancer incidence is high amid a population of 35 million, the first cancer hospital was not opened until 1981. Later, a second, the Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (CCHRC) was established in 1996, it was the initiative of a non-profit society of local citizens, funded by public philanthropy on land provided by government.

CCHRC would, however, expand into an innovative, widely admired, full-service cancer care facility after Indian surgical oncologist Dr. Ravi Kannan R. became hospital director in 2007, the first formally-trained oncologist to fill the position. It surprised many that Kannan, who previously headed the surgical oncology department in Adyar Cancer Institute, a major cancer institute in Chennai, would exchange a position in a big city for a small hospital in a remote part of the country. Kannan had a simple answer. It was where he was most needed.

Under Kannan’s leadership, CCHRC became a full-fledged comprehensive cancer hospital and research center. From a hospital with limited facilities when he came on board, it now has twenty-eight departments covering oncology, pathology, radiology, microbiology, epidemiology, tumour registry and palliative care, and other services and specializations. From a staff of only twenty-three, the hospital now employs 451 people.

Kannan saw from the beginning that it was not just a matter of having state-of-the-art cancer facilities. Patient compliance rate to treatment was at 28%. Patients came but did not continue their treatment due to such reasons as the difficulties of traveling long distances, the cost (including the loss of income of family caregivers), and resignation to the belief that the patient would never be cured. Clearly, the underlying reason was poverty. Thus, the hospital introduced such pro-poor initiatives as free treatment, food and lodging, adhoc employment for caregivers, and a homecare program. Hospital team members would travel long distances to train family members in pain management and palliative care, as well as provide free medicines. As a result, patient compliance rates rose to 70%. CCHRC now provides free or subsidized cancer care treatments to an average of 5,000 new patients annually, catering to approximately 20,000 poor patients for treatments and follow-ups. Kannan says, “No one should be denied access to treatment due to want of money.”

The hospital states its vision in these words: “We aim to become a state-of-the-art cancer center that will ensure that no individual develops a cancer that can be prevented, that no patient is denied appropriate cancer treatment for want of resources, that no patient dies in agony and indignity and that no family suffers treatment induced poverty and grief.” It is a clear, bold statement that the hospital translates into actual practice.

Kannan, now fifty-nine-years-old, has served the hospital for nearly seventeen years. He is particularly proud of the people around him who share his vision for the hospital, many of them young professionals attracted and inspired by his leadership. Self-sacrificing and quietly heroic, Kannan lives with his family in Assam and in this remote region continues to work without expectation of public recognition. Reiterating his mission, he says, “To be able to deliver inclusive health care and inclusive cancer care, you must have care available. You must have care that is equitable, accessible, and affordable.”

In electing Ravi Kannan R. to receive the 2023 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his devotion to his profession’s highest ideals of public service, his combination of skill, commitment, and compassion in pushing the boundaries of people-centered, pro-poor health care and cancer care, and for having built, without expectation of reward, a beacon of hope for millions in the Indian state of Assam, thus setting a shining example for all.

I bring greetings and warm wishes from India.

This recognition rightfully belongs to many, many people.

This belongs to the Cachar Cancer Hospital Society who dared to dream of such a facility over thirty years ago.

This belongs to all my 450 colleagues in Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre who have passionately believed in our cause and have tirelessly labored in seeing our shared dream of inclusive healthcare and cancer care become a reality for the people that we serve.

This belongs to our local communities including to our government officials and representatives who have reposed their trust in the process of creating Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in our little pocket of land in the state of Assam.

This belongs to the countless individuals and organizations across our great country of India and all across the world who have shown their steadfast commitment and support in the humble work that we do.

Most importantly, this belongs to the people we have treated, the individuals and their families, who have entrusted their lives in our hands without any reservations.

What we do in Silchar is not unique. There are several others who are engaged in similar work in healthcare and other fields who strive to improve the lot of our fellow men and women on this planet.

I believe that the Ramon Magsaysay Award recognizes all of our collaborative spirits and efforts.  I accept this Award on behalf of all of them.

As Bhupen Hazarika, an Assamese bard sang, “‘We’re in the same boat brother. If you tip one end, you gonna rock the other, it’s the same boat brother.'” All lives on this earth are so intimately linked to one another that we cannot afford to be exclusive.

An ancient Sanskrit verse goes thus: Ayam nijam paro veti ganana laghu chetasam, Udar charitanam tu vasudhaiv kutumbakam.  For the wise, the entire earth is one family.

The road to human happiness and fulfillment truly lies in holding every life on this planet sacred and worthy of our love in an all-inclusive spirit. People have given us their time, talents, and treasures not merely to help the sick regain their health but to give much-needed hope to the hopeless. Together, all of us can change the way we take care of sickness and suffering, promote universal health, and control of cancer and other diseases.

Om Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah, Sarve Santu Nir-Aamayaah | Sarve Bhadraanni Pashyantu, Maa Kashcid-Duhkha-Bhaag-Bhavet | Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

May everyone be happy, be free from all disease, see goodness and auspiciousness in all things, and may none be distressed. May everyone be at peace.

Let us each continue to make efforts both big and small to harness the goodness around us to better the conditions of everyone in need with faith that together, we can make a difference.

Thank you to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this great encouragement that indeed together we can all make a difference.