Announcing Winners of the CII Foundation Woman Exemplar Award 2024

17 May 2024, New Delhi: The CII Foundation announced the winners of the Woman Exemplar Award 2024 at the CII Annual Business Summit 2024 held in New Delhi today. The prestigious award is presented in the categories of Health, Education, and Micro-enterprise to grassroots women leaders from rural and resource-poor areas who have risen above crippling socio-economic challenges to drive social change within their communities.

The award was presented by Ms Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Government of India at the ceremony in the presence of distinguished guests from Government, industry, the social development sector, and the media.

Ranjita Pawar from Osmanabad, Maharashtra, received the award in the Education category; Rumi Perween from Kishanganj, Bihar, in the Health category; and Saraswathi Malluvalasa from Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh, in the Micro-enterprise category. Each winner received a trophy, a certificate, and a cash prize of Rs 3 lakh.

For the 2024 edition of the Award, over 300 nominations were received from across India. The nominations were screened using a rigorous, multi-level screening process which included personal visits to meet the women to get an in-depth understanding of their work and social impact. From the shortlisted 16 candidates from 9 States, an eminent jury drawn from industry, civil society, media, and the social development sector selected the three winners.

Each of the award winners has shown exemplary courage in the face of adversity and emerged as a leader who is driving transformative work in her community.

Ranjita Pawar, born into the stigmatized Laman Banjara tribe, rose as a bold advocate from Osmanabad. To overcome the language barrier and the label of being a criminal tribe, she introduced foundational education in the local dialect, Gormati, empowering 27,000+ children, 1000 youth leaders and 20,000 adults from Nomadic Tribes and De-notified Tribes. This led to notable academic and psychological progress among Laman children.

Rumi Perween: Battling poverty and an abusive marriage, Rumi decided to stand her ground to pursue higher  education, a decision that unfortunately marked the end of her marriage. Being outcasted from her own family, Rumi started volunteering at the young age of 14. Striving to improve the health indicators in rural Bihar, Rumi identified and tackled the prevalent issue of Tuberculosis and is advocating for increased awareness on menstrual and reproductive health through her NGO, impacting over 1,70,000 women and children through her work.

Saraswathi Malluvalasa Drawing from her own experience with domestic violence and gender discrimination, Saraswathi recognized the correlation between food insecurity, economic dependence, and violence against women. In response, she established the “Millet Sisters,” a network of small-scale women farmers working together to ensure food security through livelihood enhancement, improving the income of over 20,000 women. Her work exemplifies the "five E's" for women's empowerment: Education, Equality, Employment, Economic development, and Empowerment.

These exemplars are now part of a powerful national network of over 120-woman exemplars, each contributing to significant social change in their communities and positively impacting nearly 3 million lives annually. The CII foundation continues to support the exemplars through a range of initiatives to build their capacity for greater social impact.

For additional information about the CII Foundation Woman Exemplar Award, please visit Woman Exemplar Program (ciifoundation.in).

For media inquiries, please contact:

Priya Shirali

Lead- Communication, CII Foundation

E-mail: priya.shirali@cii.in