\n A Cambodian psychiatrist treating victims of the Khmer Rouge and a French environmentalist cleaning up Indonesian rivers were among the winners Wednesday of the 2022 Ramon Magsaysay Award -- considered Asia's Nobel Prize.\n<\/p>\n
\n The annual award, established in 1957 and named after a Philippine president who died in a plane crash, honours those who have performed \"selfless service to the peoples of Asia\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The foundation that runs the award named four winners in an online announcement.\n<\/p>\n
\n Among them was Sotheara Chhim, 54, a psychiatrist and survivor of the murderous, ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge regime that killed nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population through starvation, overwork and mass executions in the 1970s.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was cited for devoting his life to helping people who suffered under the Khmer Rouge, with a focus on treating \"baksbat\" -- or \"broken courage\" -- a syndrome seen in Cambodia that is similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Magsaysay Award organisers praised \"his calm courage in surmounting deep trauma to become his people's healer\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It's not easy to work with trauma survivors, to listen to the trauma stories of the people as it reminded me a lot about the trauma I suffered myself,\" Sotheara Chhim told AFP in an interview Wednesday, adding the award came as a \"surprise\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I feel that the more I help people, it heals myself too,\" said the psychiatrist, describing his work as \"a kind of catharsis\".\n<\/p>\n
\n He also testified as an expert witness before a United Nations-backed tribunal trying senior Khmer Rouge leaders.\n<\/p>\n
\n French environmental activist and filmmaker Gary Bencheghib, 27, was given the award for his efforts to clean up Indonesia's polluted waterways.\n<\/p>\n
\n Bencheghib and his brother have built kayaks made of plastic bottles and bamboo to pick up trash in the Citarum river, one of the most polluted in the world.\n<\/p>\n
\n Filipino doctor Bernadette Madrid, 64, also received the award for setting up child protection centres across the Philippines to help domestic abuse victims.\n<\/p>\n
\n And Japanese ophthalmologist Tadashi Hattori, 58, was honoured for providing free eye surgeries in Vietnam, where such specialists and facilities are limited.\n<\/p>\n
\n His generosity, the Magsaysay Award foundation said, was \"the embodiment of individual social responsibility\".\n<\/p>\n
\n An in-person ceremony honouring the winners will be held in Manila in November.\n<\/p>\n
\n burs\/cgm\/axn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Cambodian psychiatrist treating victims of the Khmer Rouge and a French environmentalist cleaning up Indonesian rivers were among the winners Wednesday of the 2022 Ramon Magsaysay Award -- considered Asia's Nobel Prize. The annual award, established in 1957 and named after a Philippine president who died in a plane crash, honours those who have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-105744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n