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Japanese, Sri Lankan among Magsaysay award winners

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A Japanese historian Yoshiaki Ishizawa, who helped Cambodians preserve the Angkor temples and a Sri Lankan teacher Gethsie Shanmugam, who counselled war widows and orphans to overcome their nightmares are among the six winners of this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Awards.

Winners of Ramon Magsaysay Awards 2017:Japanese, Sri Lankan among Magsaysay award winners

WinnerAwarded for
Yoshiaki Ishizawa (Japan)For devoting 50 years of his life to help preserve Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, a 162-hectare (400-acre) temple, from the ravages of time and conflict
Gethsie Shanmugam (Sri Lanka)For braving bombings and threats of arrests in conflict zones to counsel war widows, orphans and children traumatized by three decades of brutal civil war in Sri Lanka
Abdon Nababan (Indonesia)For leading an effort to return state-controlled forest land to indigenous communities and give them a political voice and identity
Tony Tay (Singapore)For organizing volunteers starting in 1983 to cook and distribute thousands of free meal packs every day to feed the elderly, migrant workers and low-income families.
Ms. Lilia de Lima (Philippines)For overseeing the opening of hundreds of job-generating export processing zones across the country as head of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority
Philippine Educational Theatre Association (Philippines)Philippine Educational Theatre Association was founded in 1967 with an initial aim of creating a national theatre but served as an artistic platform for protest when dictator Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law five years later. Its advocacies through the arts have since expanded to gender issues and disaster preparedness.

About Ramon Magsaysay Awards:

The Ramon Magsaysay Award is an annual award named after former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay.

  • It is regarded as Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize and was first awarded in the year 1958.
  • It is awarded to Asian individuals and organisations for outstanding contributions in Government Service, Public Service, Community Leadership, Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, Peace and International Understanding and Emergent Leadership.
  • Awardees are presented with a certificate and a medallion with an embossed image of Ramon Magsaysay at a ceremony in Manila, Philippines on August 31st, the birth anniversary of Ramon Magsaysay.