New Delhi: ‘Educate Girls’, an Indian NGO, was on Sunday named a winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award 2025.

Though individuals from India have won the coveted award earlier, ‘Educate Girls’ created history as the country’s first organisation to get the honour, the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) said in a statement.

Educate Girls, founded by Safeena Husain in 2007, has been acknowledged 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,” the foundation said.

The other Magsaysay 2025 awardees are Shaahina Ali from the Maldives, for her environmental work, and Flaviano Antonio L Villanueva from the Philippines for his efforts to uplift the poor and marginalised.

Each awardee will receive a medallion bearing the likeness of President Ramon Magsaysay, a citation and a cash prize, the foundation announced.

Ramon Magsaysay Award, which is regarded as Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, honours individuals and organisations demonstrating exceptional courage and selfless service to the people of the continent.

The 67th Ramon Magsaysay Award ceremony will be held on November 7 at the Metropolitan Theatre in Manila.

Addressing female illiteracy in India

Educate Girls was established by Safeena, a London School of Economics graduate who returned to India from San Francisco to work in the field of female illiteracy.

“Starting out in Rajasthan, Educate Girls identified the neediest communities in terms of girls’ education, brought unschooled or out-of-school girls into the classroom, and worked to keep them there until they were able to acquire credentials for higher education and gainful employment,” the RMAF statement added.

In 2015, Educate Girls launched the world’s first Development Impact Bond (DIB) in education, linking financial aid directly to measurable outcomes. “It began with 50 pilot village schools and eventually reached over 30,000 villages across India’s most underserved regions, benefiting more than two million girls, with a retention rate exceeding 90 per cent,” the Foundation said.

The NGO also introduced Pragati, an open-schooling programme enabling young women in the age group of 15-29 to complete their education and access lifelong opportunities. The programme, which started with 300 learners, now has over 31,500 participants.