Kim Sun-tae

2007 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Public Service from South Korea. The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 suddenly rendered Kim Sun-tae an orphan at the age of ten. While later scavenging for food, a mortar shell exploded and left him blind. In the face of rejection and cruel treatment, even from his own relatives, he became a beggar and learned to survive in the streets, the orphanages, and later in the high school where he became the first-ever blind graduate. Overcoming the resistance of Korea’s military junta, he earned a master’s degree in theology at Soongsil University. With characteristic determination, Kim formed Korea’s first church for the blind in 1972, nurturing its growth in numbers and outreach. He then founded the Siloam Eye Hospital, where state-of-the art facilities and eye-restoring surgery were available free to the needy. Adding a mobile clinic to service the rural poor and a center for rehabilitation and learning to help blind and low-vision persons develop job skills, he has reached over 350,000 people through medical and educational services.