ASIAN ISSUES AND TRENDS

Magsaysay Awardees Conference 2006

"Strengthening Civil Society as a Force for Social Change"

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CONFERENCE

Now on its 15th year, this year's annual gathering of Magsaysay laureates and RMAF Board of Trustees was held in mystical and captivating Nepal, from 23-26 November at Radisson Hotel, Kathmandu. The 2006 Magsaysay Awardees Conference provided a unique opportunity for meaningful exchanges among the laureates on their current and future work. A special focus of this year's conference discussions was on the increasingly urgent issue of civil society organizations and the role they play in advocating social change.

Ten Magsaysay laureates, coming from six different countries in Asia, participated in the conference. All are doing path-breaking work that addresses the challenge of social reform and development in their respective countries. Joining the conference this year were four RMAF Trustees, and two guest-participants.

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Two things characterized this year's Conference:

• Vigorous and enthusiastic dialogues on social reform issues in the small-group sessions;
• A personally moving experience of Dr. Sanduk Ruit's eye-camp project at the Pullahari Buddhist monastery, following a comprehensive tour of the Tilganga Eye Centre

As in past Conferences, the overall concept of the 2006 annual gathering of selected Magsaysay laureates was to strengthen this distinguished community of moral leaders in Asia. The Conference's primary goal was to provide a forum for awardees and trustees to come together, exchange insights and information, and forge partnerships that will help expand their individual impact and widen their collective influence.

Participants and guests made connections with each other everywhere -- over the breakfast table or coffee breaks, during reflective dialogues and workshop sessions, via PowerPoint presentations they made to explain their work, in the project site visit as they witnessed the amazing outreach work of the host-awardee, and even while enjoying photo shoots, local tours and hosted dinners in the cool city of Kathmandu.

a. Conversations and Dialogues

The annual sharing of insights and strategies among Awardees invariably "recharged" their spirits and reaffirmed the relevance and value of their crusading work.

Reflective Dialogues paved the way for the Awardees and RMAF Trustees to establish and strengthen connectivity in terms of "unfulfilled dreams" in their personal and professional lives. The participants articulated the personal experiences of social change that helped shape who they are now, and the things they still want to do, which they feel passionately about.

Awardee Spotlight, a structured 15-20 minute snapshot of "greatness of spirit", allowed a deeper appreciation of the work of the awardees. Each awardee-participant was given quality airtime to share with fellow-participants the specific work they have been engaged in, the lessons learned from their successes and frustrations, and what keeps them going in their continuing advocacies.

Action Brainstorming por issue-focused discussions paved the way for the participants to identify specific options for partnership and collaboration, on both the personal and professional level. Some action commitments that surfaced:

• Awardees from Southeast Asia (Teten, Benjie, Tony) expressed their desire to first, "become better friends" and second, to work together on projects for the indigenous peoples (IP), the youth IP leaders and the Muslim communities in the areas of leadership, anti-corruption advocacy and building GK housing projects.
• Awardees from South Asia (Aruna, Shanta, Shoaib) expressed their intent to strengthen their solidarity and sustained networking through cross-learning and technology-exchanges of best practices. Here, the awardees collectively asked for the support of RMAF to initiate the coming together of South Asian Awardees to learn from each other and share best practices in their work.
• The RMAF Trustees likewise reiterated their shared objective, which is to widen the ripples of influence of the Awardees, both locally and regionally, as a strong community of moral leaders. One clear point of support that the RMAF can provide to Magsaysay laureates is to build and strengthen connections among Awardees, and between Awardees and other institutions, through small-group workshops on best practices and technology sharing, and even structured project site visits where possible.

b. Project Site Visit : Exposure to Host-Awardee's Work

Participants had the opportunity to visit two sites of the work of Dr. Sanduk Ruit. One was at the Tilganga Eye Center's (TEC) Surgicentre (where treatment and surgery takes place) and the Fred Hollows IOL (intraocular lens) manufacturing laboratory (where high-quality intraocular lenses are produced). The second site was in the field -- the outreach programs usually in poor, remote and unserved areas in Nepal and neighboring countries. Fortuitously, during the time of the conference, the long-time TEC outreach partner, the Pullahari Buddhist Monastery, organized an Eye Camp for cataract patients. Thus, conference participants had the privilege to observe up close how a microsurgical eye camp is carried out, and how Dr. Ruit , his team of eye-care professionals, and Buddhist monk-volunteers, brought to over 200 poor patients the life-changing quality eye treatment of TEC.

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