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2021 Winners & Finalists

Most Promising Individual

Deepa Pawar
Founder-director of Anubhuti Charitable Trust,
Mumbai

Deepa Pawar is the founder-director of Anubhuti Charitable Trust, and over the past five years, she has founded and built up perhaps one of the only Nomadic and De-notified Tribe (NT-DNT) woman-led organization. Through her organization, Deepa works for intersectional gender justice work at the grassroots level, including with NT-DNT communities.

Through Anubhuti Trust, Deepa works with NT-DNT, ST and SC communities and youth on mental justice- in intersection with social security and justice, gender empowerment, leadership training, sexual and reproductive health rights, and safe higher education and working spaces for youth with focus on the inclusion of religious minorities, migrants, workers in vulnerable occupations, women with disability, sexual minorities and other vulnerabilities in these areas.

Deepa’s work as an individual, a team member in organisations and the leader of an organisation over the last two decades have helped her sharpen her feminist, anti-caste lens. She has been able to take these learnings to her family life, as well as her professional life. She is one of the few women in the community who didn’t take her husband’s name after marriage, and her daughter takes her name, not her husband’s. Deepa embodies Dr. Farrell’s principles of ‘feminism in everyday life’, and includes a feminist praxis lens in each aspect of her life.

Best Organisation for Gender Equality

Shaheen Women’s Resource and Welfare Association,
Hyderabad

Established in 2002, Shaheen Women’s Resource and Welfare Association is a grassroots organization located in the Old City of Hyderabad, that is committed to the cause of women’s rights, and communal harmony. Shaheen’s unique position to support Muslim, Dalit and OBC communities is facilitated from its location in an area where intersections of gender, caste, religion and class have led to multiple forms of oppression for women.

Towards the end of empowering women and girls from marginalized communities using an intersectional feminist lens, Shaheen has five strategic priorities. These include economic empowerment, health awareness, gender sensitization and child rights, advocacy with stakeholders, and culture and harmony.

Shaheen’s commitment towards protecting its employees exemplifies institutional safeguards towards making workplaces safe. Their work reflects Dr. Farrell’s commitment to gender mainstreaming within organizations, and gender transformational organizational practices.

2021 Finalists

Yousa Lachenpa (Sikkim, Gangtok)

Currently serving as Member Secretary, State Social Welfare Board and holds additional charge as Member Secretary, Sikkim State Commission for Women; Sensitization and training programme mandated under The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2013 are being conducted at regular intervals;

Babita Rani (Seemapuri, Delhi)

Aanganwadi worker; works as a project manager for the Society for Promotion of Tribal Welfare and Development (SPTWD) (since 2009) and as a paralegal with Nazdeek (since 2016).

Dhirendra Pratap Singh (Gurgaon, NCR)

Dhirendra is the CEO of a non profit organisation called the 'Milaan Foundation' where nearly nearly 80% of the members are females and from communities worked with; 2007 est the ‘Learning and Resource Centre’ in Kaintain village, UP for non-formal educational spaces to promote learning for girls dropping out of primary school.

Deepa Pawar (Thane, Maharashtra)

Founded an organization 'Anubhuti Charitable Trust' and innovated to reach women of over 4500 families belonging to NT-DNT, SC and ST communities across 15 Districts of Maharashtra during the pandemic, for relief work

Suman Devathiya (Jaipur, Rajasthan)

Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila Vishwavidyalaya

Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila Vishwavidyalaya, also known as Bhagat Phool Singh Women's University, is the first women's only state university of North India established by the Government of Haryana; Bhagat Phool Singh Women's University has its origins in the ideas of the social reformer Bhagat Phool Singh.

North East Network

A women's rights organisation from North-east India working with and for women of all ethnicity, sexual/gender identity, disability, culture and space; it works in the areas of gender discrimination and violence against women, governance and state accountability and Natural Resource Management and livelihood; they provide a 'Certificate Course on Barefoot Counselling to address violence against women and girls'

Sappho for Equality

Activist Forum For Lesbian, Bisexual Woman and Transman Rights in Kolkata; Providing safe space for lesbians, bisexual women and F to M transpersons through Sappho, Peer Counseling, Running a helpline, Providing mental health counseling services to LGBTI individuals and families

Shaheen Collective

Shaheen Women’s Resource and Welfare Association was set up in the year 2002 to work among rioting communities in the Old City area of Hyderabad. The primary focus of the work was on ground interventions for the women and girls of the isolated communities of Muslims, Dalits and Other Backward Castes (OBC).

Shakti Shalini

Shakti Shalini’s vision and mission, structurally and practically, is to ensure that survivors of violence are provided the absolute best, theoretically and technically informed, and sensitive support services that uphold their right to choice and safety, that are competent in tackling complex situations with nuanced and careful perspective, and mobilising resources as per the varying needs and context of each individual. Shakti Shalini hopes to play a pioneering role at the levels of policy-making, awareness and sensitisation, pedagogic and educational, economic and developmental, grassroots and marginalised, cultural and artistic in ensuring that every day and normalised forms of gender/ sexual violence, discrimination and inequality, in all its myriad forms and faces, is prevented, mitigated and eliminated. History- Shakti Shalini started as a healing process for two mothers who had lost their daughters to a horrifying death. Ms Satyarani Chadha and Ms Shahjahan began Shakti Shalini on 31st August, 1987 soon after their daughters were burnt alive by their in–laws due to insufficient dowry. The brutal murders of their daughters launched Ms Satyarani and Ms Shahjahan into a fierce battle against gender violence.