Minimise, avert tragedies, says Ramon Magsaysay Award winner

Societies and governments, should not only ensure that survivors are provided with the best possible support and care during tragedies but should minimise or avert these in the first place, Ananda Galappatti said when he received the Ramon Magsaysay Award on Sunday.

Seven individuals and one organisation from India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka formally received the awards.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award, often referred to as Asia's equivalent of the Nobel prizes, was established in the name of the late president who died in a plane crash in 1957, seek to honour those "manifesting the same sense of selfless service..."

Galappatti was awarded for emergent leadership and "his spirited personal commitment to bring appropriate and effective psychosocial services to victims of war trauma and natural disasters in Sri Lanka."

Galappatti said in his work, "interdisciplinary collaboration is not merely desirable, but totally necessary."

The awards are presented annually and each winner receives a prize of about US$50,000.

Isabela governor Grace Padaca, from the Philippines, Thailand's Therdchai Jivacate Center for Agriculture & Rural Development Mutually Reinforcing Institutions, from the Philippines and represented by one of its founders, Jaime Aristotle Alip, Prakash and Mandakini Amte, a couple from India, Akio Ishii, from Japan and Ahmad Syafii Maarif from Indonesia were the others who received the awards. Business World.