'Educate Girls' becomes first Indian organization to win Ramon Magsaysay Award
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Photo courtesy of educategirls.ngo
New Delhi: The well-known Indian non-profit organization the Foundation to Educate Girls Globally is among the 2025 Ramon Magsaysay awardees, The Wire reported.
Founded in 2007, the Foundation to Educate Girls Globally, also known as ‘Educate Girls’, is the first Indian organistation to win the award.
Eminent personalities to previously win the nearly seven-decade award include Satyajit Ray, Bezwada Wilson and Ravish Kumar.
Founded for empowering girls through education, the non-profit organization—working in partnership with government systems—helps uplifts families, and communities.
Its local volunteers known as Team Balika identify out-of-school girls and bring them into classrooms, according to the report.
Its founder Safeena Husain reportedly said: ‘Being the first Indian nonprofit to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award is a historic moment for Educate Girls and for the country. This recognition places a global spotlight on India’s people-powered movement for girls’ education, one that began with a single girl in the remotest village and grew to reshape entire communities, challenging traditions and shifting mindsets.’
Named after the former Filipino statesman, is Ramon Magsaysay Award is one of Asia’s most prestigious prizes.
Other winners sharing the award this year are Shaahina Ali from the Maldives and Father Flaviano Antonio L. Villanueva from the Philippines.
Ali won the prize for her fight against plastic pollution to protect fragile marine ecosystems in the Maldives.
Father Villanueva wins for work among thousands of poor and homeless in Metropolitan Manila.