Genius innovator Sonam Wangchuk is one of the two Indians who have won the 2018 Ramon Magsaysay Award for their transformative leadership in Asia.
The 51-year-old engineer-turned educationist is also famous for inspiring Aamir Khan’s character of Phunsukh Wangdu in the blockbuster movie ‘3 Idiots’.
Mr Wangchuk is credited for changing the lives of hundreds of Ladakhi youth through his innovative and realistic methods of teaching at the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) campus, which he established in the year 1988 in India’s remote region of Ladakh.
“His uniquely systematic, collaborative and community-driven reform of learning systems in remote northern India, thus improving the life opportunities of Ladakhi youth, and his constructive engagement of all sectors in local society to harness science and culture creatively for economic progress, thus setting an example for minority peoples in the world," the award foundation said in its citation.
The other winner from India is psychiatrist Bharat Vatwani from Mumbai who works towards the betterment of the mentally afflicted people who live on the streets mostly across India.
Mr Vatwani has rescued and reunited over 2,000 mentally ill patients with their families through his Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation, which was set-up in 1989.
The two winners from India will be formally conferred the Magsaysay Award, widely regarded as Asia’s Nobel, during a ceremony slated to be held in August in Philippines.
