JAAGO's Korvi receives Magsaysay award, the 'Nobel Prize of Asia'

Korvi Rakshand, the founder of JAAGO Foundation, has been announced as one of the winners of the 2023 Ramon Magsaysay Award in the Emergent Leadership category.

Often referred to as the "Nobel Prize of Asia," this prestigious award—the highest accolade in Asia—recognises exceptional contributions of individuals in various fields, from public service to social innovation that impacts the lives of Asians. Notable recipients of this award include Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, Mother Teresa, Dalai Lama, and Satyajit Ray, among others.

This year, four individuals across different categories were nominated for the awards. They are: Ravi Kannan R from India, Miriam Coronel-Ferrer from Philippines, Eugenio Lemos from Timor-Leste, and Korvi Rakshand from Bangladesh. The official announcement of the award came on the morning of August 31, 2023. The formal conferment of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards will be held at the Metropolitan Theater in Manila, Philippines on Saturday, November 11, 2023.

Established in 1957 by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in the memory and honour of Ramon Magsaysay, the celebrated former Filipino president, the Ramon Magsaysay Award celebrates the value of integrity, courage, and selfless service of individuals impacting Asian landscapes. With this year's award, Korvi Rakshand joins the distinguished list of 344 outstanding individuals and organisations whose selfless service has offered their societies, Asia, and the world successful solutions to some of the most intractable problems of human development.

Korvi Rakshand founded JAAGO Foundation in 2007. Since then, the foundation, now a prominent local non-profit, has grown exponentially and now provides free of cost, government-recognised, English-language education to over 30,000 students throughout Bangladesh, according to a press handout.