Tamil Nadu based Working Women’s Forum (India) and Indian Cooperative Network for Women is all set to bestow the Founder’s Day awards on the best poor women entrepreneurs in South India on the occasion of the 89th Birth Anniversary of the legendary cooperator and social worker Dr Jaya Arunachalam.
The award function will be organized at the Working Women’s Forum (India) auditorium at their Chennai headquarters. The WWF sister concern ICNW works to enhance the social and financial independence of poor women, providing low interest loans and encouraging women’s entrepreneurship and their growth.
Dr Jaya Arunachalam was a woman who sacrificed her life for the betterment of poor women for forty years from 1978 to 2019. She spent her life addressing women’s issues and worked hard to improve their quality of life. The vision of Dr Jaya Arunachalam was to make the poor working women stand on their own feet in their life.
Named ‘Heroines of Covid’ awards, these nine awards would be given to winners who are aged between 48 – 69 years with an average literacy of 10th Std. Some are widows, some have handicapped husbands, and the large majority are the sole bread-earners for the family.
They have taken 10 to 37 loans and never defaulted in all these years “particularly during Covid”. They have received up to Rs.3,50,000 – Rs.5,00,000 in 10 – 35 loan cycles/years; repaid without default often starting with Rs. 200 per month.
These loanees are into occupations like idli-making, Xerox shop, Lamination shops, petty shop or Kirana etc. They are from South, North, Central Chennai; Dindigul, Adiramapattinam in Tamilnadu. In Karnataka they are from Bengaluru, Channapatna districts; In Andhra Pradesh from Narasapur, Bheemavaram. Many of the loanees have invested in their children’s education (particularly girls) who are pursuing courses such as engineers, management, ITI, nursing etc.
They were selected from 1500 nominations and they fitted well in the criteria of timely payment and those who have never defaulted ever on their payment. They also took the highest number of loans and have been part of the Forum for a long time. The CEO of each state went through the job of selecting 5 members from the branches.
WWF President Dr. Nandini Azad finally vetted the list of CEOs selected as one of these two entrepreneurs as the Final Awardee based on all round criteria (Social – Economic). Training Division Head and Software Division engineers were also involved to ensure impartiality. Readers would recall that last year the awards were given away by Governor of Telangana Smt. Tamilisai Soundarajan.