Chetna Vijay Sinha, founder of the Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank for rural women in India, has been named the winner of the 2013 India Social Entrepreneur of the Year awards presented by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship (a sister organization of the World Economic Forum) in partnership with the Jubilant Bhartia Foundation.
The bank, set up by illiterate, rural women who fought hard to secure a banking license from the Reserve Bank of India, works in conjunction with the Mann Deshi Foundation to provide rural women with financial and non-financial support to improve their standards of living. Namely, they do this through three institutions: a women-owned rural cooperative bank providing financial services, a rural mobile MBA school offering skill and entrepreneurship training, and a chamber of commerce facilitating market and policy linkages.
As far as future goals are concerned, Mann Deshi aspires to create 1 million rural women entrepreneurs in India by 2020.
For India, this marks the 9th year of the Social Entrepreneur of the Year awards, collecting over 200 applicants this time around.
The judges this year were Sudha Pillai, Member Secretary, Planning Commission, India; Shobhana Bhartia, Chairperson and Editorial Director, HT Media, India; Harish Hande, Managing Director, SELCO Solar Light, India, and a Ramon Magsaysay Award winner for year 2011; Hilde Schwab, Chairperson and Co-Founder, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Switzerland; Kavita Ramdas, Representative, Ford Foundation, India; Anshu Gupta, Founder and Director, Goonj, India, and last year’s winner of the award; and Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson, Arghyam Foundation, India.
Commenting on the state of social entrepreneurship in India, Hilde Schwab, the chairperson and co-founder of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship says, “India remains one of the most dynamic regions for social entrepreneurship and the India awards consistently attract a high quality of social enterprises.”
“This year, we were also very excited to see an all-woman finalist pool. They are all working on highly inspiring visions and innovative strategies across critical areas including skills training, livelihoods development, disease control and empowerment of women,” she added.
Sinha will be invited to join the Schwab Foundation’s global community of over 250 social innovators.
Duo Mrinalini Kher and Kishor Kher from Yuva Parivartan were one of three finalists. Yuva Parivartan provides skills training to India’s Below Poverty Line youth. Over four years, they have reached 100,000 youth in 16 states. Among those, 60 percent obtained jobs or set up their own ventures.
Shelly Batra envisions a tuberculosis-free India. Her brainchild Operation ASHA offers low-cost, high-quality doorstep tuberculosis detection and treatment service through a network of local entrepreneurs trained as professional tuberculosis counsellors. Over eight years, Operation ASHA has reached 6 million tuberculosis patients in India and Cambodia, treated patients with a 90 percent success rate, and reduced the cost of treatment by 15 times compared to other treatment initiatives.
The third finalist is Mallika Dutt from Breakthrough Trust. Using media, arts and popular culture, Breakthrough Trust changes the attitudes and behaviours that promote gender-based violence and human rights violations. It works on large-scale public service campaigns and local community projects, seeing the value of both. Over 15 years, it has reached more than 130 million Indian viewers.
Photo from the Jubilant Bhartia Foundation.