When Lahpai Seng Raw, along with several other prominent Kachin, first started the Metta Foundation in 1998, she was faced with a humanitarian crisis in northern Myanmar and a lack of funds to deal with it.
RECOGNISED: After years of working tirelessly for the Metta Foundation, Lahpai Seng Raw has won the region’s top humanitarian honour. PHOTO: COURTESY OF LAHPAI SENG RAW
''I didn't get enough of the international support I needed,'' Seng Raw says, referring to the foundation's early days.
Metta was launched four years after a ceasefire ended decades of bloody fighting between the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) rebel group and the central government. It was the first NGO to be registered with Myanmar's Ministry of Home Affairs.
But the foundation faced tremendous difficulty raising funds to carry out development and relief programmes in Kachin state, where thousands of people had been displaced by the fighting that had ravaged the area since 1961.
Eventually, though, donor support did come, and Metta grew from a small organisation focused on Myanmar's Kachin areas to a large-scale NGO with programmes spanning the country.
One of Metta's signature programmes, Farmer Field Schools, has trained more than 33,700 farmers nationwide to increase their crop yields in an environmentally sustainable way since it was launched in 2000. That programme, and the group's work in the Irrawaddy delta after the devastation of 2008's Cyclone Nargis, significantly boosted Metta's profile in Myanmar's development and humanitarian field.
Seng Raw's reputation as a champion of civil rights grew with the organisation, now one of Myanmar's largest, and despite stepping down as the foundation's chief in September 2011, she remains active in Kachin humanitarian affairs. Late last month, the 64-year-old veteran aid worker was named as one of five recipients of this year's Ramon Magsaysay Award, widely dubbed the ''Asian Nobel Prize''.
The Manila-based foundation which organises the awards praised Seng Raw for her ''quietly inspiring and inclusive leadership _ in the midst of deep ethnic divides and prolonged armed conflict _ to regenerate and empower damaged communities and to strengthen local NGOs in promoting a non-violent culture of participation and dialogue as the foundation for Myanmar's peaceful future''.
Seng Raw first became involved in Kachin humanitarian affairs in the late 1980s at the request of Maran Brang Seng, the late chairman of the KIO.
Then, as now, thousands of Kachin had been displaced in northern Myanmar after years of fighting between the KIO and the Myanmar military.
She also worked with the Representative of Kachin Affairs as a Bangkok-based liaison officer.
''I was based in Bangkok for seven years, from 1990 to 1997, coordinating kindergarten education on the Kachin-China border and finding higher education options available through scholarships for young persons whose education had been interrupted due to instability in their homeland,'' Seng Raw says.
But despite all her hard work, the situation faced by Seng Raw's fellow Kachin today is still one of violence and uncertainty. A 17-year ceasefire between the central government and the KIO collapsed in June, 2011, triggering heavy fighting which saw the military carry out unprecedented air strikes against KIO positions last December.
While the fighting has eased significantly in recent months, more than 100,000 Kachin remain internally displaced, a situation Seng Raw describes as a humanitarian emergency.
''For two years these internally displaced persons have been living in inadequate conditions and the assistance they are receiving is not able to sustain them,'' she says, referring to the plight of the Kachin refugees, a majority of whom are languishing in camps along the Myanmar-China border in KIO territory, where both the UN and international NGOs have only limited access.
''Local civil groups are trying to solve the problem as best they can. Although international groups cannot reach the area, they should support local groups that are able reach the affected population. Both the government and KIO should open a way to enable assistance to reach these people,'' she says.
Despite ongoing tensions between many Kachin and the Myanmar government, Seng Raw remains hopeful the situation will improve and peace will return to the region.
''I believe we now have the opportunity to bring about change to build a just and true Union [of Myanmar]. Because of our troubled past, many problems have to be addressed simultaneously _ all at the same time, not one at a time,'' she says. ''The struggle for democracy and resolving the underlying issues of ethnic grievances are intertwined and cannot be separated.''
But serious obstacles to peace in Kachin state remain. The last two years of fighting have left many Kachin feeling that their region has not benefited from President Thein Sein's reform agenda in the same way the rest of the country has. In many ways, Kachin state appears little changed from the Myanmar of the previous military regime.
The same week Seng Raw's prize win was announced, another famous Kachin woman, land rights activist Bawk Ja, was arrested for manslaughter, charges her supporters believe are politically motivated.
It is widely recognised that a major factor driving the conflict in Kachin state is the region's rich natural resources, including timber, jade and gold. The scramble to control Kachin's resources, if left unaddressed, could lead to a prolonged conflict for many years to come, but Seng Raw hopes this won't happen.
''All stakeholders need to work collectively to stop the rush to extract natural resources from undermining Myanmar's new shift toward democracy. It is also crucial to bring peace and normalcy to the lives of these displaces persons. We must support every effort for immediate and lasting solutions,'' she says.
Seng Raw is the first Kachin woman to win the Magsaysay Award, though she joins a prestigious list of other recipients from Myanmar, including Cynthia Maung, head of the famed Mae Tao Clinic for refugees based on the Thai border and Karen environmental activist Ka Hsaw Wa.
Longtime dictator Ne Win turned down the prize in 1960, which was bestowed upon him in recognition of his completion of a two-year stint as the head of an interim caretaker government.
This year's Magsaysay Award winners, who include Filipino doctor Ernesto Domingo and Habiba Sarabi, Afghanistan's first female governor, will each receive a medallion bearing the likeness of the late Filipino president Ramon Magsaysay, after whom the prize is named, and a cash prize. Last year's prize was US$50,000.
Seng Raw says she will use the money to support projects that will protect and preserve the Myitsone, a sacred Kachin site located at the confluence of the two rivers that converge to form the Irrawaddy in northern Myanmar.
In 2010, Chinese state-owned firm China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) began construction of a massive 152m tall dam at the Myitsone which would have flooded an area larger than Singapore. The hugely unpopular dam project was officially suspended in September, 2011, by presidential decree, but CPI has been pushing hard to get building back under way.
''Losing Myitsone, for the Kachin, is like losing his or her heart and soul. It would be a loss of unbearable proportions, not just for the Kachin at the source of the Irrawaddy, but for the rest of the country also, for whom the river is like a mother who feeds Myanmar's citizens,'' Seng Raw said shortly after her prize was announced.
''My fervent hope is that the Irrawaddy will continue to flow for all time, and that efforts to make this a reality with be a factor that unites all citizens of Myanmar.''