Lankan psychological counsellor among 2017 winners of Magsaysay awards

A teacher turned psychological counsellor from Sri Lanka’s minority Tamil community is among the six winners of this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Awards, regarded as Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize.

Gethsie Shanmugam, 82, a teacher and psychological counsellor, has won for rebuilding lives from the psychosocial wounds of war and violence braving bombings and threats of arrests in conflict zones to counsel war widows, orphans and children traumatised by three decades of brutal civil war in her country, the Ramon Magsaysay Awards Foundation said.

Shanmugam did psychosocial work for adults and children displaced by war in Sri Lanka’s Northern and Eastern provinces, and became more intensely involved when she worked with Save the Children Norway (SCN).

She took a leading role in designing programs and doing research, training, and counselling in projects aimed at building capacities for psychosocial support in war-affected schools and at helping war widows, orphans, and traumatised children.

When Sri Lanka was ravaged by the horrendous 2004 tsunami, which left 31,000 confirmed dead, Gethsie trained 80 school teachers in a Government pilot program to provide a supportive environment for traumatised children.

Her citation said in electing Gethsie Shanmugam to receive the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognises “her compassion and courage in working under extreme conditions to rebuild war-scarred lives, her tireless efforts over four decades in building Sri Lanka’s capacity for psychosocial support, and her deep, inspiring humanity in caring for women and children, war’s most vulnerable victims.”