The CII Foundation announced the winners of the Woman Exemplar Award 2024 at the CII Annual Business Summit in New Delhi. This award recognizes grassroots women leaders from rural and resource-poor areas who have overcome poverty, social, and gender-based discrimination to become community leaders driving social change in the areas of Education, Health, and Micro-enterprise.
The award was presented by Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Government of India, to Ranjita Pawar from Osmanabad, Maharashtra, in the Education category. The honor includes a trophy, a certificate, and a cash award of Rs 3 lakh.
For the 19th edition of the award, over 300 nominations were received from across India. Following a rigorous multi-level selection process involving telephonic interviews and personal visits to assess the impact of their work, 16 finalists were identified. Among the finalists in the Education category were Basmati Gagrai from Jharkhand, Bideshini Patel from Odisha, Pramila Chouhan from Madhya Pradesh, Ranjita Pawar from Maharashtra, and Sandhya Devi from Odisha.
Ranjita Pawar, born into the stigmatized Laman Banjara tribe, emerged as a courageous advocate from Osmanabad. To address the language barrier and the stigma of being labeled a criminal tribe, she introduced foundational education in the local dialect, Gormati. Her efforts have empowered over 27,000 children, 1,000 youth leaders, and 20,000 adults from Nomadic Tribes and De-notified Tribes, leading to significant academic and psychological progress among Laman children.
"Every child deserves the right to education. By guiding them on the right path and providing quality education, they can achieve great things. My goal is to transform the children of the tribal communities into responsible citizens and significantly improve their literacy rates," says Ranjita Pawar.
The CII Foundation has been identifying, recognizing, and empowering grassroots women leaders through its Woman Exemplar Program to promote women-led development. These women are honored on a national platform, which highlights their work and helps them garner further support. The program also builds their capacity through training and mentoring and promotes them on various platforms to amplify their work and social impact. The 16 women comprising the 2024 cohort now become part of a nationwide network of more than 120 Woman Exemplars. These women are at the forefront of driving transformative social change at the grassroots level, making a tangible difference in the lives of 3 million people every year.
