NGO Educate Girls wins Ramon Magsaysay Award
AWARDS
1 SEPTEMBER 2025
- Educate Girls, an Indian non-profit organisation working to educate unprivileged girls across the country, has been named as one of the three winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, 2025.
- The other winners are Shaahina Ali of the Maldives and Flaviano Antonio L. Villanueva of the Philippines.
- Announcing the award for Educate Girls, also known as Foundation to Educate Girls Globally, the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation said that it was “an Indian organisation whose groundbreaking work in addressing gender injustice in education in India’s most rural and remote areas creates a ripple effect that uplifts families, communities, and entire societies”.
- “Starting out in Rajasthan, Educate Girls identified the neediest communities in terms of girls’ education, brought unschooled or out-of-school girls into the classroom, and worked to keep them there until they were able to acquire credentials for higher education and gainful employment,” it said.
- Reflecting on the milestone, Safeena Husain, who founded Educate Girls in 2007, said, “Being the first Indian non-profit to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award is a historic moment for Educate Girls and for the country.”
- Fr. Flaviano Antonio L. Villanueva of the Philippines shot to fame for opposing former President Rodrigo Duterte’s infamous drug war which led to widespread human rights abuse.
- The Ramon Magsaysay Award, regarded as Asia’s Nobel Prize, was started in 1958 to celebrate “greatness of spirit and transformative leadership in Asia”.
- Earlier the award was given in various categories. However, since 2009, awards are given under a general category, highlighting remarkable contributions across fields rather than fixed divisions.
- Since 1958, over 300 achievers and organisations from Asia have received this award.
- Acharya Vinoba Bhave (Bhoodan Movement), Mother Teresa, Arun Shourie, Maheshweta Devi, Kiran Bedi, Ravish Kumar, Arvind Kejriwal, Sonam Wagnchuk, Anshu Gupta (Goonj) are some of the notable Indian Ramon Magsaysay Award Winners.
