Three individuals and 3 organizations received the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Awards on Wednesday night, August 31, the birth anniversary of the late Philippine president after whom the leadership award was named. This award is considered as Asia’s Nobel Prize.

They are:

Individuals

• India: Bezwada Wilson – for asserting the inalienable right to a life of human dignity
• India: Thodur Madabusi Krishna – for ensuring social inclusiveness in culture
• Philippines: Conchita Carpio Morales – for restoring faith in the rule of law

Organizations

• Indonesia: Dompet Dhuafa – for expanding the transformative impact of zakat
• Japan: Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers – for building a world of genuine solidarity
• Laos: Vientiane Rescue – for volunteering to save lives at risk

They are “giants who walk among us, who remind us that our world is getting better,” Vice President Leni Robredo said of the six recipients of the Ramon Magsaysay (RM) Award, Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize, who were formally honored on Wednesday.

The awarding rites at the Cultural Center of the Philippines also paid tribute to 1962 RM awardee for international understanding Mother Teresa, who will be canonized on Sept. 4.

Mr. Krishna has been hailed in the citation as “showing that music can indeed be a deeply transformative force in personal lives and society itself.” He was trained from the age of six in Carnatic music under the masters of the form.

“In electing Thodur Madabusi Krishna to receive the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognises his forceful commitment as artist and advocate to art’s power to heal India’s deep social divisions, breaking barriers of caste and class to unleash what music has to offer not just for some but for all,” the citation said.

Mr. Wilson said no human being should be subjected to the inhuman practice of manual scavenging. “Manual scavenging is a blight on humanity in India. Consigned by structural inequality to the Dalits, India’s ‘untouchables’, manual scavenging is the work of removing by hand human excrement from dry latrines and carrying on the head the baskets of excrement to designated disposal sites,” states Mr. Wilson’s citation.

“Treated as an outcast in school and acutely aware of his family’s lot, Bezwada was filled with great anger; but he would later channel this anger to a crusade to eradicate manual scavenging,” the citation said.