‘ Educate Girls’ bags Magsaysay Award for bringing rural daughters back to school

India’s Educate Girls, a non-profit organisation that transformed the lives of millions of rural school dropouts, has been conferred the 2025 Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s most prestigious recognition for public service and transformative leadership. Founded by Safina Hussain in 2007, the NGO is the first Indian organisation not individual to receive the award in the country’s long and illustrious history with the Magsaysay honours.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award, established in 1957 by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Philippine government, is often described as the “Nobel Prize of Asia.” Yet many see it as a truer bellwether of transformative leadership having identified visionaries long before they gained global acclaim. Jayaprakash Narayan was honoured in 1965, years before his call for “Total Revolution” reshaped Indian politics. Mother Teresa received it in 1962, a decade before the Nobel Peace Prize. Arvind Kejriwal, awarded in 2006, went on to redefine urban governance as Delhi’s Chief Minister.

Safina Hussain, an alumna of the London School of Economics, left her professional career in San Francisco to return to India after witnessing the glaring gender divide in education across rural Rajasthan. Her organisation began by mapping remote villages, identifying girls excluded from schooling, and persuading families to give them a chance to learn. What started as a small local initiative has now grown into a massive community movement spanning over 30,000 villages across Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, driven by more than 55,000 volunteers known as Team Balika. Together, they have helped bring over two million out-of-school girls back to classrooms.

The Magsaysay Foundation cited Educate Girls “for its commitment to addressing cultural stereotyping through the education of girls and young women, liberating them from the bondage of illiteracy and infusing them with skills, courage, and agency to achieve their full human potential.”

In 2015, Educate Girls introduced the world’s first Development Impact Bond (DIB) in education, linking financial aid to measurable outcomes in enrolment and learning. By the project’s end in 2018, it had surpassed its learning targets by 160 percent and enrollment targets by 116 percent. The organisation later launched Pragati, an open-schooling initiative for women aged 15–29, helping over 31,000 learners resume their education and reclaim lost opportunities. Safina Hussain dedicated the award to “every volunteer, coordinator, and girl who dared to dream,” describing girls’ education as “the closest thing to a silver bullet to solve some of the world’s hardest problems.”

Alongside Educate Girls, the 2025 Ramon Magsaysay Awards also recognised Fr. Flaviano Antonio L. Villanueva of the Philippines, a missionary priest who founded the Arnold Janssen Kalinga Center to restore dignity and hope among the homeless and bereaved families of drug-war victims through his Paghilom (Healing) program; and Shaahina Ali of the Maldives, a diver, photojournalist, and environmental advocate who leads Parley Maldives in mobilising island communities to combat plastic pollution and protect marine ecosystems.

India has a rich history at the Ramon Magsaysay Awards, with over 60 recipients so far, spanning social reform, governance, art, music, science, and journalism. The last Indian awardee before this year was Dr. R. Ravi Kannan (2023), the Assam-based surgical oncologist who transformed the Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre into a model of affordable and compassionate cancer care.

• Vinoba Bhave (1958)

• – Bhoodan movement, land reform

• Mother Teresa (1962)

• – Humanitarian work for the poor

• Verghese Kurien (1963)

• – White Revolution, dairy cooperatives

• Jayaprakash Narayana (1965)

• – Social reform, democratic movement

• Satyajit Ray (1967)

• – Global recognition for Indian cinema

• M. S. Swaminathan (1971)

• – Green Revolution

• M. S. Subbulakshmi (1974)

• – Classical music and philanthropy

• Arun Shourie (1982)

• – For fearless, investigative journalism.

• R. K. Laxman (1984)

• – Political satire through art

• Pandit Ravi Shankar (1992)

• – Global music and cultural exchange

• Kiran Bedi (1994)

• – Police reforms and integrity

• T. N. Seshan (1996)

• – Electoral reforms in India

• Aruna Roy (2000)

• – Right to Information movement

• Arvind Kejriwal (2006)

• – Transparency and citizen empowerment

• Sonam Wangchuk (2018)

• – Sustainable education in Ladakh

• Ravish Kumar (2019)

• – Courageous journalism

• Dr. R. Ravi Kannan (2023) -

• Accessible cancer care in Assam

That Educate Girls joins this stellar lineage as the first Indian organisation ever to be honoured marks a historic milestone. It reflects a growing recognition that transformative change is not only about exceptional individuals but also about collective, community-led movements that reimagine inclusion and equality. This recognition reaffirms that educating every girl is not charity but nation-building, one classroom, one village, and one dream at a time.