President of India Presents CII Foundation Women Exemplar Awards

New Delhi, 27 April 2017 : Orphaned at the age of 3, Ms Jayamma Bandari, Telangana dropped out of school due to poverty. Later, domestic violence forced her to earn through sex work. She fought against all odds to set up Chaithanya Mahila Mandali (CMM), an NGO dedicated to empower women and protect children of sex workers from harassment, trafficking and sexual abuse and ensures formal education. Jayamma works actively with over 4000 women in sex work and connects them to child care facilities, child protection schemes, skill trainings and alternative livelihoods. Despite poverty, family violence and discontinued education, Ms Manika Majumdar, West Bengal became West Bengal’s first trained barefoot community mental health counsellor. In partnership with local urban bodies, she and her team from Anjali, a Kolkata based NGO, run a community mental health kiosk, to provide de-stigmatized, accessible and affordable mental health care to marginalized individuals and families across 35 municipal wards. Daughter of a daily-wage labourer, Ms Kamal Kumbhar, Maharashtra walked out of poverty and a failed marriage to set up Kamal Poultry and Ekta Sakhi Producer Company. Her ventures have enabled 3000 women to run successful poultry farms, doubling their households’ incomes in the drought – prone region of Osmanabad, Maharshtra. A serial entrepreneur, Kamal today owns six different businesses and is a role model business leader. These three extraordinary women change makers were recognized as the CII Foundation Woman Exemplars 2017.
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> The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, presented the three grassroot women leaders with the CII Foundation Woman Exemplar Award 2017 for their extraordinary contribution. Ms. Jayamma Bandari, Ms. Manika Majumdar and Ms. Kamal Kumbhar, were conferred the awards in the fields of education, health and micro-enterprise respectively at the CII Exclusive Award Session held in New Delhi.
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> The Award is part of the CII Foundation Woman Exemplar Program which focuses on promoting women’s empowerment at the community level by discovering and recognizing those who chose to look beyond their limitations and contributed significantly to positively impact the community. Since its inception in 2005, 38 women have been recognized and supported. The platform aims at celebrating the Women Exemplar Collective with industry leaders, and to spur dynamic learning and exchange among the Women change makers.
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> In addition to a cash reward of Rs 3,00,000 each given to the three Winners, all winners and finalists, who reached the final stage of selection, will be part of a leadership training and mentoring program.
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> Selected by an eminent panel from Industry and social sector, the awardees were shortlisted from over 170 nominations received from grassroot NGOs across the country. The award, now in its 13th year, was supported by Synergy Group (in Health category) and Microsoft (in Micro-Enterprise category).
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> About CII Foundation:
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> The CII Foundation (CIIF) was set up by CII in 2011 to undertake a wide range of developmental and charitable activities pan India by enabling industry for infusing inclusive development.CIIF works towards inclusive development by providing a meaningful bridge between marginalized communities and donors, especially corporates by providing strategic guidance on CSR and developing and managing high impact programmes. The thematic areas of CIIF include: Education; Public Health and Sanitation; Skilling, Employment and Livelihoods of the marginalized; Gender Equality, Women Empowerment and Safety; Environmental Sustainability, including water; Disaster Relief and Rehabilitation.