Mandakini Amte popularly known as Manda Amte is a medical doctor and social worker from Maharashtra,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. She along with her husband, Prakash Amte were awarded the

Magsaysay Award The Ramon Magsaysay Award ( Filipino: ''Gawad Ramon Magsaysay'') is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic ideali ...

for 'Community Leadership'Citation
from th
website of Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation
/ref> in 2008 for their

philanthropic Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

work in the form of the

Lok Biradari Prakalp Lok Biradari Prakalp (LBP) ( Marathi; Brotherhood of People project) is a social project of the ''Maharogi Sewa Samiti'', Warora involving a hospital, a school and an animal orphanage. It was started on 23 December 1973, by the social worker ...

amongst the Madia Gonds in

Gadchiroli Gadchiroli ( �əɖt͡ʃiɾoliː is a city and a municipal council in Gadchiroli district in the state of Maharashtra, central India. It is located on eastern side of Maharashtra, and is the administrative headquarters of the district. Gadchi ...

district of Maharashtra and the neighbouring states of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

and

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...

. She is the daughter-in-law of

Baba Amte Murlidhar Devidas Amte, popularly known as Baba Amte, (26 December 1914 – 9 February 2008) was an Indian social worker and social activist known particularly for his work for the rehabilitation and empowerment of people suffering from leprosy ...

Early life, education and career

Amte was born as Mandakini Deshpande. She had completed her MBBS from Nagpur and later decided to do her post-graduation in Anesthesia in Government Medical College(GMC),Nagpur. Prakash, her future husband, was a surgeon and that's how they met. They worked together in the same operation theatre. Her father was opposed to her marriage with Prakash Amte as he feared that it meant she would have to live among lepers, which was a taboo then.

Magsaysay award

Amte & her husband were jointly awarded the Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2008, her citation reads as follows:

Commemorative stamp

The

Principality of Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Liguria ...

brought out a postage stamp in honour of the life and work of Prakash Mandakini in 1995 - just as they had done for

Albert Schweitzer Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was an Alsatian-German/French polymath. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. A Lutheran minister, Schweit ...

in 1955. This was only the second time that the Kingdom of Monaco brought out a stamp to honour a foreigner for their humanitarian work. A French couple, Guy and Greet Barthelemy, who had worked with Schweitzer in the early fifties, visited the project in 1992. They were moved to see the similarity of conditions at Hemalkasa and those in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

where Schweitzer worked. This French couple went back and appealed to

Prince Rainier III Rainier III (Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand Grimaldi; 31 May 1923 – 6 April 2005) was Prince of Monaco from 1949 to his death in 2005. Rainier ruled the Principality of Monaco for almost 56 years, making him one of the longest-ruling m ...

of Monaco to publish a postal stamp to honour the Amtes, which was done in 1995.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amte, Prakash Indian women activists Living people Ramon Magsaysay Award winners People from Chandrapur district People from Gadchiroli district Social workers from Maharashtra Women educators from Maharashtra Educators from Maharashtra Year of birth missing (living people)