Freedom to Create Leadership Award

As part of the 2011 Freedom to Create Prize celebrations in Cape Town, we awarded the inaugural Freedom to Create Leadership Award for Women to Dr. Cynthia Maung.

Dr. Cynthia was a 29 year old village doctor when she was forced to flee the violent crackdown by Burma’s dictatorship. With the help of foreign relief workers, Dr. Cynthia started a makeshift clinic in Huay Kaloke refugee camp. Over the last 16 years, Dr. Cynthia has developed the Mae Tao Clinic into a multi-specialty medical centre that logs more than 58,000 patient visits a year, serving a target population of 150,000 of all religions and ethnicities. It has saved the lives of thousands of refugees, illegal migrant workers and orphans.

Mae Tao is also a shelter for abused and traumatised women. “It is not just the physical pain we want to cure”, she explains. “We need to help alleviate the deep psychological trauma that war creates and we need to offer protection”. In addition to providing medical care, Dr. Cynthia and her clinic work to heal and build communities. “If women aren’t educated, they won’t have jobs. If they are depressed, they won’t be able to care for themselves or their children”, she added.

The Freedom to Create Leadership Award for Women celebrates female change-makers who have identified and implemented a creative way to address a social issue, demonstrating courage, creativity and transformational change for her community.

The Prize of the sum of US$ 25,000 is awarded to a female individual of any religion or nationality working in any sector other than the creative arts. There is a closed selection and judging process for the Freedom to Create Leadership Award for Women.

The Freedom to Create Leadership Award for Women is awarded by taking into consideration the following criteria:

  1. The courage and creativity demonstrated by the individual in devising, pursuing and implementing innovative approaches to address social challenges.
  2. The transformative impact of the creative solution on the challenge it has addressed.
  3. The extent to which the individual embodies unleashing everyone's creativity and building a new world of prosperity, the vision, the core mission and values of the Freedom to Create Leadership Award for Women.