Upholding its mission of honoring the many faces of leadership, the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award celebrates changemakers rising to meet the most pressing challenges of our time.
To many, former president Ramon Magsaysay embodied the finest qualities of Filipino leadership: progressive in vision, grounded in national pride, and steadfast in his belief that true leadership begins with service to the people. His integrity and empathy earned him the deep respect of his constituents, who mourned his untimely passing in 1957. Yet his legacy endures through the Ramon Magsaysay Award, with support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. It remains an annual honor recognizing individuals and organizations across Asia whose work reflects the late president’s ideal of selfless leadership.
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A History Of Meaningful Impact
Since its creation, the Ramon Magsaysay Award has celebrated the work and achievements of 356 individuals and organizations who—in their own ways and across diverse sectors—have addressed the many challenges that continue to shape Asia today.
Some Magsaysay Awardees are scientists and doctors leading life-saving breakthroughs in the region’s health sectors. Others are public intellectuals whose ideas have influenced policies and advanced conversations on human rights and religious tolerance. There are those who’ve worked tirelessly on the ground amid civil wars, pandemics, and corrupt regimes; and others who, through the power of their creative works, have reshaped how people think and act—proving how a shift in perspective can move entire societies forward.
The award’s impact expanded further in 2011 with the creation of the Ramon Magsaysay Transformative Leadership Institute: a major program of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation serving as an avenue to connecting Magsaysay Awardees with other leaders across Asia and beyond, sparking collaborative dialogue and action to confront both long-standing and emerging challenges brought about by the region’s rapid progress.
Meet The 2025 Ramon Magsaysay Awardees
This year’s awardees—recognized in a ceremony held at The Metropolitan Theater in Manila—carry on the spirit of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, their endeavors answering the world’s call for compassion and concrete action. From ocean cleanup initiatives to efforts that uplift their countries’ most disenfranchised communities, they’ve devoted themselves to causes that continue to improve countless lives.
“These Ramon Magsaysay Awardees remind us of what President Ramon Magsaysay stood for: that leadership is not measured by power but by purpose, that real change lies not in what we gain but in what we give,” shared Edgar O. Chua, Chairperson of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, during his opening remarks. “They show us that every life, every living organism, no matter how humble, deserves dignity, love, and grace.”
Foundation To Educate Girls Globally — India
Among this year’s three awardees was one India-based organization: the Foundation to Educate Girls Globally (FEGG). Its founder, Safeena Husain, Board of Directors Chairperson Ujwal Thakar, and CEO Gayatri Nair Lobo were all present to receive the distinction—Husain visibly moved as she delivered a rousing speech paying homage to the group’s humble beginnings.
In 2005, Husain was a young graduate of the London School of Economics who had returned to her native India after working in the United States, determined to close the educational gap between boys and girls in the country’s most vulnerable communities. With nothing but a computer and her then-toddler on her lap, she began mobilizing resources and people to improve girls’ education in rural India.
While India continues to experience rapid growth and an economic boom, many regions remain mired in poverty and its harrowing effects. Millions of girls are still denied access to education, often forced into early marriage, motherhood, and menial labor, trapped in an unbroken cycle of servitude. Their male counterparts, meanwhile, attend school and pursue the possibility of a better life.
FEGG began its work in the state of Rajasthan, identifying the most underserved communities of out-of-school girls and helping them return to the classroom, earn higher credentials, and access opportunities for higher education and employment. It also pioneered the first Development Impact Bond (DIB) in education, which linked financial support directly to measurable learning outcomes.
What started with 50 pilot village schools has now expanded to more than 30,000 villages, with two million girls pursuing their education and an impressive 90% retention rate. The organization has since launched “Pragati,” an open-schooling program that allows women aged 15 to 29 to complete their education and seek lifelong opportunities, growing from an initial cohort of 300 learners to over 31,500 today.
“When a girl is educated, magic happens. Education opens up opportunities, opportunities give her choices, and choices give her voice and agency to help her reach her full potential,” Husain shared during her acceptance speech. “We only have to do it once, because when she is educated, she is twice as likely to educate her children and break the cycle of illiteracy and poverty forever.”
Shaahina Ali — Maldives
Climate change and pollution are, now more than ever, among the world’s most urgent problems. In the Maldives, Asia’s smallest country nestled in the heart of the Indian Ocean, these challenges are amplified by years of intensive tourism and human activity. The results are sobering: microplastics clouding once-pristine waters, the slow destruction of fragile marine ecosystems, and chemical waste that endangers the health of residents.
Shaahina Ali, one of this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Awardees, has dedicated much of her life to confronting these threats and restoring the Maldives to the paradise she remembers from childhood: fine white sand stretching endlessly, an abundance of natural shells, and the rare, carefully reused plastic bag. Yet over the years, those natural wonders faded, while the plastics remained and continued to multiply.
In 2015, Ali decided to take action, partnering with the non-government organization Parley for the Oceans (Parley) to design a comprehensive program aimed at protecting the country’s waters and transforming plastic waste into sustainable livelihoods for locals. Now serving as Parley Maldives’ executive director, she has implemented the organization’s signature strategy, AIR, which stands for “Avoid, Intercept, and Redesign.” With the support of volunteers, local businesses, and partner organizations, she led more than 700 large-scale cleanup projects across the island’s coastlines, introducing educational initiatives and launching recycling programs that have changed how residents and visitors alike view their environmental impact.
Ali’s work is not driven by awards, but by a desire for future generations to once again experience the Maldives in its full, natural glory. “I go there to clean up with hope—hope that my grandchildren will see whales in the ocean in their lifetime as I did growing up,” she expressed in a statement.
Upon accepting her award, she added: “This reminds me that every small effort matters. My hope is to inspire more people to connect more deeply with nature, not just through pictures or words, but through real exposure, emotions, and conscious actions. I hope that we can […] live in balance and give other life forms an equal chance to exist.”
Flaviano Antonio L. Villanueva — Philippines
The third Magsaysay Awardee hails from our own shores: a priest of the Societas Verbi Divini who believes that serving the country’s marginalized communities means more than offering material aid. For Fr. Flaviano Antonio L. Villanueva, known to many simply as Father Flavie, true service lies in defending their rights and affirming their dignity through acts of compassion—whether it’s giving them the chance to take a bath, a simple yet restorative gesture of care, or creating spaces where they can grieve loved ones lost to systemic injustice.
Since his ordination in 2006, Father Flavie has devoted himself to those society often overlooks or mistreats, with a deep commitment to giving second chances to people who have struggled with drugs or committed minor offenses. This calling is deeply personal, rooted in his own history as a self-confessed wayward youth who once battled addiction before finding his path to the priesthood.
In 2015, he founded the Arnold Janssen Kalinga Center in Manila, which provides “dignified care and service” to thousands of Filipinos in need. The center’s mission extends beyond physical assistance, as it also seeks to heal psychological and emotional wounds, restoring a sense of self-worth by reminding each person that they’re deserving of care and respect, no matter their circumstances.
He also led efforts to recover the bodies of victims of the Duterte administration’s “war on drugs,” securing funds to exhume, cremate, and properly lay to rest hundreds who had been buried without dignity. Through his “Paghilom” program, Father Flavie extended comfort to the widows and orphans left behind by the violence, helping them process their grief and rebuild their lives with renewed purpose.
Father Flavie’s work inevitably drew the attention of those in power. In 2020, he and several others were accused of sedition (a case that was eventually dropped in 2023), but the ordeal only deepened his conviction that justice must be pursued, especially for those who can’t fight for themselves. What sets Father Flavie apart is how fully he lives the values he preaches. During his acceptance speech, he thanked a group of 80 homeless individuals, widows, and orphans whom he personally invited to the ceremony. He also brought out a long list of names—lives too often reduced to statistics—of those who perished in the extrajudicial killings.
“The poor have shown me that dignity can rise even from the streets, that kindness is stronger than cruelty, and that love, when lived, is the only revolution that lasts,” he expressed in his acceptance speech. “You do not need permission to be kind, only the courage to begin.”
There’s a common thread that runs through the lives of this year’s awardees, and no doubt all those who came before them: none set out to reach this moment. They never worked for recognition, and perhaps that’s precisely why they’re worthy of it. What drives them isn’t the pursuit of an accolade, but the belief in a possibility: a small seed they can nurture into something that leaves the world better than they found it.
As Chairperson Edgar Chua aptly put it in his remarks, “This year’s recipients both inspire and challenge us to act where indifference prevails, to bring hope where it has faded, and to be that light in our own small corners of the world.”
Photos courtesy of The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation.
