Inspiring millions! Sonam Wangchuck and Bharat Vatwani were honored with Ramon Magsaysay Award
New Delhi, July 28: Indians have shown their caliber with outperforming their role in creating an example of inspiration for the future. Honoring these noble idols, philanthropists Bharat Vatwani and Sonam Wangchuck from India were among the six winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, often regarded as the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Entering the 60th year, the prize recognizes “greatness of spirit and transformative leadership in selfless service to the peoples of Asia”. Indians have been very vocal and ardent social activists in shaping the world leaving an inspiring impression of self for the world.
Bharat Vatwani, a psychiatrist working with homeless people suffering from mental illnesses, was recognized alongside Wangchuk, a renowned education reformer from Ladakh, who launched a movement to help rural students graduate.
The Magsaysay foundation recognized Vatwani’s courage and compassion in “embracing India’s mentally-afflicted destitute and his dedication to the work of restoring and affirming the human dignity of even the most ostracized,” according to the citation on the award.
Wangchuk’s citation commended him 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”.
About the awardees
A tryst with a schizophrenic boy drinking water from the gutters changed Vatwani’s life forever. The Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation in Maharashtra, founded in 1989, strives to rescue and restore street-dwellers with psychological disorders, before reuniting them with their families. Over the past decade, it has restored health and dignity to thousands of homeless men and women.
In 1988, Wangchuk established the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) with some of his friends and family. It engaged students returning to Ladakh from prestigious universities, to bring about an overhaul and reformation of the government school system in the region. The volunteers encouraged and assisted rural students in their academics, and addressed systemic flaws in the pedagogy like misappropriation and de-sensitization. Wangchuk is also believed to have inspired Aamir Khan’s iconic character in the 2009 Bollywood movie Three Idiots.