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Chennai: India's Kulandei Francis is one of the six winners of the prestigious
Ramon Magasaysay Award for 2012, announced by the organisers in
Manila Wednesday.
Francis is being recognised for his visionary zeal, his profound
faith in community energies and his sustained programmes in
pursuing the holistic economic empowerment of thousands of women
and their families in rural India, the Ramon Magsaysay Award
Foundation (RMAF) said in a statement.
The other awardees are Chen Shu-Chu from Taiwan, Romulo Davide,
Philippines, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, Bangladesh, Yang Saing Koma,
Cambodia and Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto, Indonesia.
Born to a poor family in the Salem district of Tamil Nadu, Francis
was the only one of his siblings to earn a degree.
Sixty-six-year-old Francis began the Integrated Village
Development Project (IVDP) in 1979, in Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu
starting out with small projects: conducting a night school,
setting up a first-aid centre.
Later with the help of development organisations, he undertook a
micro-watershed programme that, over 22 years, built 331 mostly
small check dams benefitting cultivators and their families in 60
villages, said RMAF.
In 1989 IVDP began organising women's self-help group (SHP) and
today there are over 8,200 groups with 153,990 members with a
total savings of around $40 million, a cumulative loan portfolio
of around $435 million and a reserve fund of around $8.9 million.
Established in 1957, the Ramon Magsaysay Award is Asia's highest
honour and is widely regarded as the region's equivalent of the
Nobel Prize.
It celebrates the memory and leadership example of the third
Philippine president, and is given every year to individuals or
organisations in Asia who manifest the same sense of selfless
service that ruled the life of the late and beloved Filipino
leader.
"The Magsaysay awardees of 2012," says RMAF president Carmencita
Abella, "are six remarkable individuals, all deeply involved in
creating sustainable solutions to poverty and its accompanying
disempowerment - whether in the forests or on farmlands, in
exploitative industries or in inadequate education.
"Working selflessly in unpretentious yet powerful ways, they are
showing how commitment, competence, and collaborative leadership
can truly transform millions of individual lives and galvanize
progressive community action."
The awardees will be formally conferred the Magsaysay Award during
Presentation Ceremonies to be held Aug 31, 2012.
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