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I'm a fan.

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Okay serious quote HAHAHAHA

In the intensely patriarchal society of Afghanistan, Harabi became its first governor and defied all social expectations of "where a woman's place should be."

I relate deeply with her.

I don't believe in authority too and make it a habit to question power. I also don't like following the rules without understanding why they're constructed in the first place.

And most importantly, I generally dislike men in power. They have been in thrones for far too long that what I can personally tolerate, even the best ones.

I believe that people like Sarabi are what we need to restore order and in a post-Taliban society, it should have been her (or women like her) who led and became President. Instead, it was another man who failed to do his job, triggering the Taliban back in power.

Afghanistan is again in crisis and to be honest, I don't trust men to save it. It's precisely because of patriarchy that the country is bleeding dry --- they don't care about children dying because they prefer them to take arms; they don't want equality because they prefer to have half their population enslaved; they don't want peace because it is through war that they assert their power.

I look forward to having the Sarabis of Afghanistan rise again, restore their nation, and lead it permanently.

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There are few places in the world where the challenge of governance is as daunting and dangerous as in Afghanistan. A country ravaged by foreign powers, warlordism, civil war, and in 1996-2001, the regime of vicious fundamentalism under the Taliban, Afghanistan is embarked today on a perilous process of democratic state-building and development. The challenge is forbidding: widespread poverty and illiteracy, continuing disunity and violence, and the expected decline in foreign aid with the impending withdrawal of international forces. It is a place and time when true examples of hope are urgently needed.

One shining example is HABIBA SARABI, a fifty-seven-year-old doctor and mother of three, who, in a fiercely patriarchal society, is the only female governor in Afghanistan, and the first woman to hold this position in the country's history. Of a relatively privileged background, SARABI attended university in Kabul and studied hematology in India. She was professor at the Kabul Medical Science College when the Taliban took power in 1996 and imposed draconian measures on the population, particularly women. Fleeing to Pakistan to ensure that her children could continue their education, she became a teacher and an activist. Organizing together with other Afghan women the Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA), she conducted women's rights classes in refugee camps and organized mobile doctors to work in these camps. She also secretly traveled on foot, back and forth across the mountainous Pakistan-Afghanistan border, to supervise at great personal risk some eighty underground literacy courses in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, SARABI immediately set up the HAWCA office in Kabul, resumed teaching at the Medical Science College, and continued her volunteer work in literacy and women's rights.

Her work brought her public notice. In 2003, SARABI was appointed to head the Ministry of Women's Affairs and, in 2005, governor of Bamyan, a poor, agricultural province in the country's central highlands, with a population of half a million. In these positions, SARABI vigorously pushed her advocacies for public education and women empowerment. In Bamyan, public education has not only expanded; forty-five percent of the 135,000 schoolchildren are female. In 2005, there was only one female police officer; there are now twenty, and more women are taking up careers that were forbidden in the Taliban regime. As governor, SARABI has effectively worked with various stakeholders in road construction and other infrastructure projects, agricultural development and improvement of health facilities and health workers. Recognizing Bamyan's unique natural, historical, and archaeological assets, and their potential for eco-tourism, she pioneered in establishing the 570-kilometer Band-e-Amir National Park, Afghanistan's first national park.

SARABI has consistently been assessed by international donor standards as among the top performers among her peers in local government. Bamyan has benefitted from budgetary rewards resulting from such recognition. In the Afghan context of continuing violence, political uncertainty, and weak institutions, SARABI's accomplishments are truly inspiring. A member of an ethnic and religious minority-she is a Hazara and a Shi'ite-SARABI lives and works in a society where ethnic conflicts are deadly; and in the face of widespread hostility towards women assuming public roles, her courage and determination are astounding. Asked what drives her, she says, simply but firmly, "I'm not a warlord. I'm just a modern woman."

In electing HABIBA SARABI to receive the 2013 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her bold exercise of leadership to build up a functioning local government against great odds-intractable political adversities, a harsh and impoverished environment, and pervasive cultural discrimination-serving her people with a hopeful persistence grounded in her abiding commitment to peace and development in Afghanistan.

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There are few places in the world where the challenge of governance is as daunting and dangerous as in Afghanistan. A country ravaged by foreign powers, warlordism, civil war, and in 1996-2001, the regime of vicious fundamentalism under the Taliban, Afghanistan is embarked today on a perilous process of democratic state-building and development.

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"A pioneer in multinational education and an inspiration to rural leaders prompting their return to and love of the land in the Philippines."

I am tackling a similar issue in my own social enterprise, where nobody wants to be a weaver anymore. I want to get his advice on how to bring value to the weaving industry so that many others can see its value as well. Hopefully, many will fall in love with weaving as well.

Furthermore, I want to understand how he would have done anything differently and learn from this.

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Rapid urbanization, occurring on every hand today in Asia, drains from the countryside many of the energetic, able and ambitious young. Even most graduates from agricultural colleges do not go back to live on the land and apply their talents to its problems and potential. Rather they seek employment in government bureaus and private business. Rural villages, meanwhile, seem to stagnate.

WILLIAM F. MASTERSON was broadly prepared to apply himself to this challenge. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1910, he was schooled by the Jesuits. He joined the faculty of their leading educational institution in the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila, in 1933, devoting summers to leading boy scouts to Mindanao. Returning to the United States for theological studies and ordination, he became the wartime business editor of Jesuit Missions and raised more than US$4 million for postwar rehabilitation in the Philippines.

As Rector of Ateneo de Manila from 1947 to 1950, he reopened the College of Law and initiated a Graduate School and the Institute of Social Action. Yet amidst these constructive efforts, he saw the cities profiting at the expense of talents drawn from the countryside.

With his transfer to the now Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro, Fr. MASTERSON seized the opportunity, in 1953, to found a College of Agriculture designed to have "the most immediate imprint on higher production and income of rural people." With this focus, extension work came to mean loving to live and work with farmers and organizing their economic strength through creation of viable cooperatives. Students today work in land titling, soil testing, feed and market analysis, on a seed production farm and an agricultural supply cooperative and they produce practical books, pamphlets and a radio series in Cebuano. Assistance to the College now comes from 14 countries. A telling result is that two-thirds of the graduates return to farming.

In 1964, supported by the German Catholic Bishop's Fund and the German government, MASTERSON developed the Southeast Asia Rural Social Leadership Institute (SEARSOLIN) to give annually to 50 rural leaders from Asian countries eight months of intensive training in applied agriculture and organization of farmers. Some 450 have experienced this impelling rural indoctrination. They have come from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Khmer Republic, Korea, Laos, Macao, Malaysia, Micronesia, Oceania, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Most attend on scholarships, conditional on a pledge to return for at least three years to their rural communities.

In electing Rev. Fr. WILLIAM FRANCIS MASTERSON to receive the 1974 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, the Board of Trustees recognizes his multinational education and inspiration of rural leaders prompting their return to and love of the land.

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Rapid urbanization, occurring on every hand today in Asia, drains from the countryside many of the energetic, able and ambitious young. Even most graduates from agricultural colleges do not go back to live on the land and apply their talents to its problems and potential. Rather they seek employment in government bureaus and private business.

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I am currently leading a program that provides some form of pyschosocial support to kids whose parents were victims of the war on drugs. I would love to learn more about how to effectively conduct such programs and what are key factors/elements of psychosocial programs :)

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Three decades of a brutal civil war in Sri Lanka have left a hundred thousand dead and hundreds of thousands abused, tortured, detained, and displaced. A hidden cost but one that runs deep is the psychological impact of this war on people in the conflict zones, particularly women and children. As regards children it is estimated that the war killed 35,000; one in every four children in conflict areas lost one or both parents; and 300,000 were displaced. Given the lack of psychosocial support systems, the wounds of war will remain unhealed and lives will continue to be destroyed even as conflict has abated.

One woman has heroically devoted her life to meeting this problem. GETHSIE SHANMUGAM had an otherwise unexceptional beginning: a member of the country's minority Tamil community, daughter of a clerk in a British tea estate, she attended a private girls' boarding school and chose to become a teacher and counselor. Teaching at St. Joseph's College in Colombo she pursued an interest in psychology and worked as a volunteer counselor at the Family Services Institute and Subodhi Institute of Integrated Education, at a time when professional psychosocial work was still in its infancy in Sri Lanka. In 1983, after retiring from St. Joseph's, she did psychosocial work for adults and children displaced by war in Sri Lanka's Northern and Eastern provinces, and became more intensely involved when she worked with Save the Children Norway (SCN).

Braving bombings, searches, and threats of arrest in the conflict zones, GETHSIE crossed the Sinhalese-Tamil divide as she did counseling work, collaborated with colleagues, and trained teachers and NGO workers. As the Tamil-speaking expert within SCN, she took a leading role in designing programs and doing research, training, and counseling in projects aimed at building capacities for psychosocial support in war-affected schools and at helping war widows, orphans, and traumatized children.

After she left SCN, she continued to be active as consultant and volunteer in organizations working with women and children suffering not only from war trauma but also domestic violence, alcoholism, and sex trafficking. As psychosocial consultant and child rights advisor to Eastern Self-Reliant Community Organization she led in establishing a pioneering temporary home for young people victimized by abuse and in trouble with the law. When Sri Lanka was ravaged by the horrendous 2004 tsunami, which left 31,000 confirmed dead, GETHSIE trained eighty school teachers in a government pilot program to provide a supportive environment for traumatized children. Learning various approaches and methodologies from training experiences in different countries, she experimented with small, simple ways to build psychosocial resilience adapted to local conditions and the lack of trained professionals; and actively disseminated her learnings through publications and the mass media.

Despite extreme difficulties and the challenge of balancing her work with her responsibilities to her own family, GETHSIE, even in her advanced years, has continued to work in the field, using what resources are available and working even without compensation, in her individual capacity or with organizations. Her deepest reward, she says, is seeing children she had helped grow to become better, happy persons.

Working quietly but relentlessly, she trained hundreds of psychosocial practitioners and countless of teachers, and helped change the lives of countless women and children. From working one-on-one with children to building the capacity of Sri Lanka's psychosocial sector, she is truly a mma ("mother") of her nation's children. Calm, wise, and self-effacing, she says, quite simply: "I did not do so much, just a drop in the ocean. But those drops are important, and I hope there will be many more to help society grow."

In electing GETHSIE SHANMUGAM to receive the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her compassion and courage in working under extreme conditions to rebuild war-scarred lives, her tireless efforts over four decades in building Sri Lanka's capacity for psychosocial support, and her deep, inspiring humanity in caring for women and children, war's most vulnerable victims.

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Three decades of a brutal civil war in Sri Lanka have left a hundred thousand dead and hundreds of thousands abused, tortured, detained, and displaced. A hidden cost but one that runs deep is the psychological impact of this war on people in the conflict zones, particularly women and children.

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Would love to understand how he started the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, which monitors government regulatory practices and fights political corruption.

https://www.rmaward.asia/awardee/park-won-soon

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The Honorable Chief Justice, Chairman and Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, distinguished guests, fellow Awardees and dear friends.

I am so pleased to be here today, but at the same time, I feel guilty, because I stand alone in this great place without my colleagues who deserve to be here with me.

I always thought that good work could not be achieved by one person but by a group of people who share a common dream and common goals. This award is a result of not only my work but the work we have done together to make a better world. There are people who really care about our society, people who dream about a new alternative world with all of their being, and people who are willing to be members and contribute money for a common cause and the public interest.

Indeed these are the people who should be here with me today. These are people who donate their knowledge, wisdom, money, time, and talent for a better society. I would like to share this glorious award with all of them.

Tonight, I feel light as a feather, because I was awarded this esteemed prize. But I also feel heavy-hearted, because I can sense difficulties and barriers looming in the near future. It will give me more to do than what I have already done.

The People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy and The Beautiful Foundation have both played an important role in Korean society and have changed the lives of Korean people.

We have walked the path of democratization and humanization in the face of military dictatorship in much the same way as the Filipino people have. We have all come a long way.

People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, on which I worked from 1994 to 2002, tried to strengthen transparency and accountability in society through various campaigns and strategies, to increase government efficiency and to stop corporate corruption. We also protected small shareholders? rights and challenged the top management of big corporations to take their social responsibilities to heart.

On the other hand, the Beautiful Foundation, which I served for the last six years, tried to expand the culture of giving in South Korea, and to build the bridge of unity in this divided society. Through our 1% sharing movement, which is such a magic number, shoe-shine boys, peddlers, and many others, poor or middle class, joined the campaign.

I have always believed and shouted out loud that the world can be changed by citizens' power. With this catch-phrase, I helped ordinary citizens participate in politics, economics, and social issues and encouraged them to play a significant role in our society. As a result, these collective efforts achieved a field of blooming flowers called participatory democracy ? flowers which have now replaced disinterest and disregard.

This achievement is, however, just a starting point. This long journey has yet to achieve a deeper and wider democracy, higher humanism, and a more rational and systematic society within and beyond Korean society. And I still dream about reaching these goals in my every waking moment. This is why I felt guilt and heavily burdened when I was informed about winning the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

I deeply appreciate this award and extend my blessing to the President of the Magsaysay Award Foundation, its trustees, and all you distinguished attendants.

Today, I regard this most honorable Magsaysay Award as a constant reminder for me to be more diligent and consistent in my political journey with all of my friends -- friends just like you.

Salamat. Thank you very much.

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The Honorable Chief Justice, Chairman and Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, distinguished guests, fellow Awardees and dear friends. I am so pleased to be here today, but at the same time, I feel guilty, because I stand alone in this great place without my colleagues who deserve to be here with me.

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She got me at the description "lacking personal wealth with which to finance such work, she instead has given unsparingly of her time and energy". Living during a time when women were not given the same prominence as men, I wanted to listen to her stories about how she pursued her advocacy for women and youth. I wanted to know the specific challenges she faced, how she overcame those, what she learned from them, and how she was changed by those experiences. I also wanted to know about her motivations. Upon reading her citation, she did a lot despite the lack of personal wealth. What kept her going? And did she even had time for herself?

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There are wonderful surprises that come our way, at one time or another, in our life. And to me this prestigious award is the greatest and most wonderful surprise of all.

The honor and distinction bestowed upon me makes me feel most grateful and makes today the most memorable day of my life. This auspicious and noble event reveals once again to all men the undying spirit of greatness of the late President Ramon Magsaysay. The national loss of the Philippines five years ago has become the world's gain in consciousness of the spirit that is sublime. The noble standard set by his leadership inspires universally. His greatness transcends the barrier of race, nationality or creed. Like a spiritual torch, it burns bright, lighting eternally the path for men and women who believe and work selflessly for a better human society, a society where justice, peace and freedom prevail. The world has been vitalized by its impact ever since, and again today.

To be honored with the Ramon Magsaysay Award for me is not personal pride alone; my country, Thailand, also rejoices with me. The philosophy and meaning of the award has focused the attention of Thai society as a whole on the true spirit of service. Royal graciousness came in the congratulations from Her Majesty Queen Sirikit, the great patroness herself of national public service. The first lady, Tan Puying Vichitra Dhanaraj, wife of the Prime Minister, extended her felicitations. The press and leaders of philanthropic and civic organizations as well as officials in the Civil Service, Army, Navy and the Air Forces joined with men and women who are private citizens in expression of awareness of the spirit behind the award announcement. Thailand also rejoices in the recognition for the outstanding service of the Awardee for International Understanding for her international citizenship, because the winner of the Award makes our country one place of her residence. Her selfless devotion to the cause of the blind in Thailand opens the mind and the eyes of our public to a new vista of service of man for man. The Ramon Magsaysay Award has thus brought about a closer tie of friendship and sentiment between our two countries. Today we are walking the path which leads to further fulfillment.

We feel more assured of those spiritual values which need mutual strengthening to withstand the misinterpretation of truth, justice and freedom.

The world has undergone all forms of phenomenal changes, but that which endures is mankind. No matter how powerful are man-made weapons, they can not completely destroy their maker. In man, the most powerful element is the noble spirit. Compassion and loving kindness will always win over hate and violence which are of lesser quality.

Today another great satisfaction for me is the opportunity to meet and know of men and women who have proved that the spirit exists as a binding force for selfless service to their country, people and ultimately to the world.

The spirit and philosophy behind this award points out the fact that mankind needs more than ever the manifestation and fortification of the true ideals of freedom and prosperity for all.

In my very humble belief, we are progressing on the path once marked out by the exemplary life of Ramon Magsaysay, great statesman not only of the Philippines but of the world, for the greatness of his spirit is the true greatness of man.

My most humble reverence goes to him whose name will forever inspire. The Board of Trustees have won my most sincere thanks for keeping their precious and noble trust with the utmost responsibility.

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There are wonderful surprises that come our way, at one time or another, in our life. And to me this prestigious award is the greatest and most wonderful surprise of all. The honor and distinction bestowed upon me makes me feel most grateful and makes today the most memorable day of my life.

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Karl: I would like to have a conversation with Sonam Wangchuk and learn about the work that he needed to do to bring climate innovation to rural areas in India, the kind of life skills they found worth teaching and scaling to students, and also learn how they have made the work sustainable https://www.rmaward.asia/awardee/wangchuk-sonam

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Karl: I would like to have a conversation with Sonam Wangchuk and learn about the work that he needed to do to bring climate innovation to rural areas in India, the kind of life skills they found worth teaching and scaling to students, and also learn how they have made the work sustainable https://www.rmaward.asia/awardee/wangchuk-sonam

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Ladakh in the northern India state of Jammu and Kashmir, is a high-altitude, cold desert region where some 300,000 people struggle in the midst of a harsh environment, wars arising from the rival claims of India, Pakistan, and China, and now even climate change. Yet here the will to autonomy, creativity, and empowerment remains vibrant.

An inspiring example is SONAM WANGCHUK. Born in the small, remote village of Ulaytokpo in Ladakh, one of many children of a local leader, he had a difficult education because minorities were discriminated against, schools were lacking and poorly-equipped, teaching standards abysmal, textbook content locally irrelevant, and the medium of instruction alien in the mountains. Left mostly to fend for himself, he took control of his life early on.

He was a 19-year-old engineering student at the National Institute of Technology in Srinagar, Kashmir, when he went into tutoring to finance his schooling and help woefully unprepared students pass the national college matriculation exams. Renting a hotel function room, he advertised a coaching program that, exceeding expectations, drew close to a hundred students. Teaching basic subjects like English and Math, using strategies like peer-to-peer teaching, it was a financial success. But the experience also demonstrated to him how poorly educated the students in village schools were.

In 1988, after earning his engineering degree, WANGCHUK founded Students' Education and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) and started coaching Ladakhi student, 95% of whom used to fail the government exams. To create lasting impact, SECMOL partnered with local government in a joint program of educational reform. Piloted in a village school, the program involved training teachers in "creative, child-friendly, and activity-based" education; introducing curricular changes to make subjects relevant to the Ladakhi culture and context; prioritizing English over Urdu to better prepare students for higher education; and promoting the Ladakhi language. Village education committees (VEC) were organized to support schools, monitor teacher performance, and become true stakeholders. Successfully piloted, this initiative of "localizing" schools was replicated in 33 schools and became a veritable movement.

In 1994, with WANGCHUK in the lead, "Operation New Hope" (ONH) was launched to expand and consolidate the partnership-driven educational reform program. Taking a life of its own, to date ONH has trained 700 teachers, 1000 VEC leaders, and dramatically increased the success rate of students in matriculation exams from just 5% in 1996 to 75% by 2015. In 1998, WANGCHUK opened SECMOL School, with a permanent faculty, volunteers, and a yearly average of 300 students. An alternative boarding school that offers review, certificate, and associate-level courses, it rebuilds the students' confidence, develops lifeskills, revisits the fundamentals and offers courses ranging from leadership training to solar power installation. Also a model in its use of renewable energy and indigenous technology, SECMOL has produced students who have gone on to become pioneering entrepreneurs in different fields.

A natural innovator, WANGCHUK works out of local experience. Seeing how climate change has affected the natural water supply for agriculture, he seized on the idea of building artificial glaciers in the form of "ice stupas" for irrigation during the dry summer. Called "stupas" (for public appeal in a Buddhist land), these are conically-shaped ice mountains, that store water in winter and in summer melts to supply farm irrigation water. Six stupas he and his team have created store roughly 30 million liters of water. Beyond Ladakh, WANGCHUK has shared his environmental and educational innovations with mountain peoples across the whole Himalayan belt, and as far as Switzerland. Simple and non-confrontational in his leadership approach, SONAM WANGCHUK, continues to dream of ways to help the people of Ladakh. He confidently says, "The possibilities are endless."

In electing SONAM WANGCHUK to receive the 2018 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes 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.

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Ladakh in the northern India state of Jammu and Kashmir, is a high-altitude, cold desert region where some 300,000 people struggle in the midst of a harsh environment, wars arising from the rival claims of India, Pakistan, and China, and now even climate change. Yet here the will to autonomy, creativity, and empowerment remains vibrant.

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Love how simple her story is - she just does, silently with what she can and at her best.

I admire her for her selflessness and if given the chance to have a conversation with her, it would be nice to know what she enjoys doing the most when her day ends or any day when she's not selling vegetables.

Iconic line: "Money serves its purpose only when it is used for those who need it."

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https://www.rmaward.asia/awardee/maamo-eva-fidela

Her story is like the ones we heard from Doctors to the Barrios but amplified because she did so much more beyond the practice of medicine for the good of the communities she served. Oh and she's a nun!?!

She didn't stop with serving her communities as a doctor. She saw the importance of "total human development" and multiplied support for her communities to open up scholarships, micro-lending, daycares - this is collective impact before there was even a term for it. I want to hear her recount how they performed procedures in remote communities and learn about how she got people together to see what she saw and just help out. Her life story is so far from mine but she is one of those examples of simple ordinary people who did so much just because they wanted to do good.

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Your Excellency, President Fidel V. Ramos; Mrs. Luz Banzon Magsaysay; members of the Board of Trustees; fellow Awardees; distinguished guests; friends, ladies; and gentlemen. I thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this privilege of being one of the 1997 Awardees. I accept this award with all humility to praise and thank God for His tremendous love and concern for the poor, the sick, and the underprivileged. In truth and in essence, an award for community leadership does not belong to any one person alone but rightfully to the community as a whole. And who is that community? It is the members of the board of trustees of the Foundation of Our Lady of Peace Mission, who together with the Alfon

I thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this privilege of being one of the 1997 Awardees. I accept this award with all humility to praise and thank God for His tremendous love and concern for the poor, the sick, and the underprivileged.

In truth and in essence, an award for community leadership does not belong to any one person alone but rightfully to the community as a whole.

And who is that community?

It is the members of the board of trustees of the Foundation of Our Lady of Peace Mission, who together with the Alfonso Yunchengo Foundation and the Manila Doctors Hospital, have provided the structure, direction, and logistic support for us to do our work.

It is our dedicated staff and our Sisters, who take care of the different project centers, compassionately bring mothers, brothers, teachers, doctors, advisers, and friends to the poor men, women, and children of the squatter and Aeta communities, helping them to cope with their lives and empowering them to rise above their many problems.

It is the committed young volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists, midwives, and non-medical professionals in our Medical-Surgical Missions, working tirelessly into the night not only in the operating rooms but also climbing up with me to the hills and mountains, unmindful of the heat and rain, to reach out to the Aetas and victims of calamities, bringing with them the gospel message of God's love, mercy, and compassion to His people. Many times it seemed there was nothing more to give, yet they continued on giving.

It is my family: my parents, my brothers and sisters, who gave me love, taught me to love, and nourished me with their strength and courage.

It is my religious family, the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres not only in the Philippines but all over the world, through my Provincial Superior, Sr. Agnes Therese Teves and her council, and my Community Superior, Sr. Carmelita Chua, who encouraged and stood by me in many ways in this apostolate.

It is the men and women of business and government who have shared their many talents and resources so we could accomplish our mission. It is also the ordinary folks-just wanting to help, looking for neither reward nor recognition.

And most important of all, the community is the poor and the marginalized, our fellow Filipinos "who have less in life," whom the late President Ramon Magsaysay sought to help and protect by giving them more in law. They are our brothers and sisters who hold a special place in the heart of Jesus, of whom He said: "Whatever you do to the least of your brethren, you do unto Me."

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the community is all of us. And what of leadership?

Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself provided the definition of a leader-one who serves and inspires others by his life and example.

We are all leaders. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we all can and should be community leaders.

Let this Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership be a challenge for us all. Let it be the impetus for inner spiritual growth and for reaching out to all our brothers and sisters so that this world could be the world God has intended it to be: a world of peace, a world of sharing, and a world of love. Let our goals go beyond the boundaries of our nations and the milestones of the year 2000. Let us focus our sights upon that time when all men shall become one and "all creation, everything in heaven and on earth shall be gathered together under Jesus Christ name." It is God's plan, and as His creatures let us, individually and as an entire humanity, confidently and wholeheartedly accept this challenge. Like our Blessed Mother, let us humbly say: "Thy will be done, My God!"

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Your Excellency, President Fidel V. Ramos; Mrs. Luz Banzon Magsaysay; members of the Board of Trustees; fellow Awardees; distinguished guests; friends, ladies; and gentlemen. I thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this privilege of being one of the 1997 Awardees.