Ambuja Cement Foundation’s Women Federation wins ‘Sandvik India Gender Award 2018'
Shri Sorath Mahila Vikas Sahkari Samiti
awarded under
‘Community Based Organisation’ category
by Shrutee K/DNS
Mumbai: Ambuja Cement Foundation
supported women’s federation Shri Sorath Mahila Vikas Sahkari Samiti (SMVSM) has
been conferred with the prestigious ‘Sandvik India Gender Award 2018’ in
recognition of its significant role in empowering and transforming the lives of
rural women through holistic initiatives, thus contributing to gender equality.
The SMVSM from Kodinar in Gujarat was
honoured with this recognition under the category ‘Community Based Organisation’
for breaking gender stereotypes and overcoming conscious or subconscious bias
with the help of its digital literacy initiative. The award was received by the
federation’s director Motiben Chavda from the renowned Indian social worker Sindhutai
Sapkal during the recently held event in Pune.
Ambuja Cement Foundation, the CSR
arm of the leading cement manufacturer Ambuja Cement, helps women realise their
potential by fostering and promoting holistic approaches that include facilitating
them to form groups and federations, thus effecting sustainable social change. Ambuja
Cement Foundation has completed its Silver Jubilee recently.
Brimming with pride, Ambuja Cement Foundation’s Head Pearl
Tiwari said, “It's indeed a proud moment for us. While we have always
believed that for our women sky is the limit, it is quite heartening to witness
their incredible journey. ACF's women empowerment initiatives started with
Kodinar but today we have been successful in making a significant change in the
lives of rural women across different locations - and enabled them to transform
their role from homemakers to change-makers.” “Today, women are defying social
norms, gender stereotypes and scaling new heights with their strong
determination,” concluded Ms Tiwari.
The Sandvik India Gender Award
supports gender initiatives, recognises excellence and commitment to gender
equality, diversity and inclusion in areas such as education and social change.
The selection criteria for this award included a very rigorous three-staged
scrutiny process under the observation of the distinguished jury.
One of the key initiatives that enabled
this federation to win the award is 'Internet Saathi' – the ongoing initiative
introduced by Ambuja Cement Foundation in collaboration with its partners in
order to provide entrepreneurship opportunities and withstand competition in
the digital world. This program assumes even more significance at a time when the
government is pushing ahead the Digital India initiative to
transform the country into a digitally empowered society.
Over 100 Internet Saathis – who
move in and around the villages and gather the women folks to teach them on the
usage of smartphone and internet – have trained over one lakh women so far, making
them capable of taking up new challenges. Through this project, SMVSM aims to
train over 200 women as Internet Saathis, who will in turn educate over 2.5 lakh
women by 2020.
Registered in 2012, this federation
comprising of 6000 members was established to provide social security to women
in rural areas. Today, with various successful initiatives to uplift social
strata of women, the federation members with a corpus of Rs five crore are not
only financially independent but also empowered to fight social taboos –
alcoholism, domestic violence and widow discrimination.
About
Ambuja Cement Foundation: Established in 1993, Ambuja Cement Foundation
is the social development arm of Ambuja Cements Ltd. exclusively working with
rural communities to make them self-reliant and help them utilize their
potential for a prosperous life. Completing its 25th year, Ambuja
Cement Foundation has been working on issues related to water resource
management, sustainable agriculture, skill-based livelihoods, health &
sanitation, quality education and women empowerment. With its presence in 22
locations across 11 states, ACF is currently reaching out to nearly 26 lakh people
across India.
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