Manila: The Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) Thursday announced the Magsaysay Award winners for 2018. This year, six persons are receiving the award, of whom two — Bharat Vatwani and Sonam Wangchuk — are from India. The other winners are from Cambodia, East Timor, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Vatwani has been selected for the award in recognition of “his tremendous courage and healing compassion in embracing India’s mentally-afflicted destitute, and his steadfast and magnanimous dedication to the work of restoring and affirming the human dignity of even the most ostracised in our midst”.
Wangchuk, in turn, has been selected for “his uniquely systematic, collaborative and community-driven reform of learning systems in remote northern India, thus improving the life opportunities of Ladakhi youth, and his constructive engagement of all sectors in local society to harness science and culture creatively for economic progress, thus setting an example for minority peoples in the world”. Wangchuk’s efforts had inspired a character in a popular Hindi film ‘3 Idiots’.
The other winners are Youk Chhang, from Cambodia, who has been recognised for “his great, unstinting labour in preserving the memory of the Cambodian genocide, and his leadership and vision in transforming the memory of horror into a process of attaining and preserving justice in his nation and the world”; Maria de Lourdes Martins Cruz, from East Timor, for “her pure humanitarianism in uplifting Timor Leste’s poor, her valiant pursuit of social justice and peace, and her nurturing the development of autonomous, self-reliant, caring citizens, so vital in new, post-conflict nationsin the world”; Howard Dee, from the Philippines, for “his quietly heroic half-century of service to the Filipino people, his abiding dedication to the pursuit of social justice and peace in achieving dignity and progress for the poor, and his being, by his deeds, a true servant of his Faith and an exemplary citizen of his nation” ; and Vo Thi Hoang Yen, from Vietnam, for “her dauntless spirit and prodigious energy in rising above her condition; her creative, charismatic leadership in the sustained campaign to break down physical and mental barriers that have marginaliaed PWDs in Vietnam; and for being a shining, inspirational model for the young in her country and elsewhere in the world”.
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