Mumbai-based psychiatrist
Bharat Vatwani, who cares for mentally ill destitutes, and Ladakhi engineer turned educationist
Sonam Wangchuk, who inspired
Aamir Khan's character in "Three Idiots", were named on Thursday among winners of this year's Magsaysay Awards, widely regarded as Asia's Nobel prize.
Vatwani (60), who lives in Borivli, and wife Smitha have in the last three decades treated and reunited 7,000 destitute schizophrenics with their families - at times in neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal.
"We have always been moved by the plight of patients with
schizophrenia," Vatwani told TOI over the phone while travelling from his rehabilitation shelter in Karjat to his home in Borivli.
Wangchuk (51) was recognised for "his uniquely systematic, collaborative and community-driven reform of learning systems in remote northern India, thus improving life opportunities of Ladakhi youth, and his constructive engagement of all sectors in local society to harness science and culture creatively for economic progress, thus setting an example for minority peoples in the world", the citation said. The awards will be presented on August 31.
Wangchuk was a 19-year-old engineering student at the National Institute of Technology in Srinagar when he went into tutoring to finance his schooling and help woefully unprepared students pass matriculation exams.
In 1988, after earning his engineering degree, Wangchuk founded the Students' Education and Cultural Movement of
Ladakh and started coaching Ladakhi students, 95% of whom used to fail the government exams.
Youk Chhang, a Cambodian genocide survivor who helped document the Khmer Rouge atrocities; Maria de Lourdes Martins Cruz, an East Timorese who built care centres for the poor amid civil strife; Howard Dee, a Filipino who led peace talks with communist insurgents, and Vo Thi Hoang Yen, a polio-stricken Vietnamese who fought discrimination against the disabled, are the other winners of the award.
The Vatwanis set up Shraddha Rehabilitation Home in Karjat where 120 "wanderers" stay at any given time. Since 2006, they have treated and reunited 5,489 patients.
"This year so far, we have managed to reunite 485 people,'' said Vatwani. He said he was ecstatic at the "international recognition" for his work. "I only hope this will bring the focus on the wandering mentally ill people on our roads." Schizophrenia, a mental disorder characterised by delusions and hallucinations and "hearing of voices", affects roughly one million Indians every year.
