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Parkash & Mandakini Amte bag Magsaysay
Baba Amte's son and daughter-in-law win 2008 Magsaysay award
WSN Network
HEMALKASA:
Following
the footsteps of their father, Prakash and Mandakini Amte have won
the Ramon Magsaysay award for their selfless work with the
aboriginal peoples of
Maharashtra.
Some thirty years ago, the doctor couple quit their practice to work
in this far flung region among the Madia Gonds.
The citation of
the award to be conferred on 31 August says, "Hidden amid the
dazzling human mosaic of India are millions of tribal people. For
centuries they have lived apart in remote highlands and forests. The
Madia Gonds, for example, occupy 150 square-kilometers of dense
forest in eastern Maharashtra, bordering Andhra Pradesh and
Chattisgarh States."
It praises the
work of the couple in "enhancing the capacity of the Madia Gonds to
adapt positively in today's India, through healing, teaching and
other compassionate interventions." The third generation of family
–the children of Prakash and Mandakini are following in their
footsteps. Civil society in
India
is hopeful that the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community
Leadership to this couple would inspire more people to shed their
urban NGO working and shift base to where it is needed most in the
heartlands of the countryside.
6 August, 2008
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