Indonesian social worker Tri Mumpuni is among the winners of Asia’s prestigious Magsaysay award this year for giving green technologies to the poor. Her IBEKA foundation is a Hivos partner.
Award foundation president Carmencita Abella said Tri, along with an Indian engineer and a Philippine charity group, had helped harness the technologies to empower their countrymen and worked to create waves of progressive change across Asia.
Asian Nobel Prize
Each year six people or organizations are named joint winners of the Magsaysay award. The award, often described as Asia’s Nobel Prize, is named after a famous Philippine president who died in a 1957 plane crash. It aims to honor people who address issues of human development in Asia with courage and creativity.
Tri Mumpuni, 46, was recognized after her IBEKA foundation built 60 small power plants harnessing the energy of water stored in dams to bring electricity to half a million people, the awards foundation said.
She was once kidnapped with her husband by former separatist rebels in Aceh province while pursuing her nongovernmental group’s project to bring electricity to rural Indonesia.
The winners are to receive their awards in Manila on August 31.
