Maria de Lourdes Martins Cruz is an East Timorese Roman Catholic woman dedicated to the service of the poor.
After an education interrupted by the independence struggle, she joined the Canossian Daughters of Charity as a novice.
Besides attending the local school in the native language Tetum, the children are taught catechism, as well as agriculture, cooking and such crafts as sewing and embroidering.
[3] After independence she teamed up with a visiting American doctor, Dan Murphy and together they set up a medical clinic for the poor.
On July 2, 2018, she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award by Carmencita Abella, president of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation in Manila, for her work in uplifting the poorest of the poor in Timor-Leste and establishing the Bairo-Ata Clinic, a free clinic for the poor that averages 300 patients daily and the largest provider of tuberculosis treatment in East Timor.