Anjali, Azad Foundation and Samata are the winners for their innovative and outstanding work for the Girl Child in the fields of Health, Employability and Education. Here are the descriptions of each social entrepreneurship organization: Anjali: Focusing on mental health issues of mothers and daughters in Kolkata, Anjali has been awarded top honors in Health. [...]

The New York Times carried a Saturday profile of Ela Bhatt and the remarkable organization she founded thirty-five years ago, SEWA. Here is an excerpt: Mrs. Bhatt’s Gandhian approach is most evident in the way she lives. Her two-bedroom bungalow is small and spare. The one bit of whimsy is a white swing that hangs [...]

This week has had no shortage of announcements of accepting nominations for some competitions and the unveiling of winners from others. Today, IndiaPRwire reports that the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, Schwab Foundation, and UNDP has picked finalists for the 2008 Social Entrepreneurship of the Year Award. The Award recognizes individuals who offer the most [...]

We all know the power of prizes to motivate innovation and so this new award will hopefully do just that: The financial services firm, Edelweiss Capital Ltd is partnering Kubera Partners, a private equity firm based in USA to launch the Kubera-Edelweiss Social Innovation Honours, three awards totaling US$ 60,000 to felicitate outstanding innovations that positively impact [...]

Madura Micro Finance has received an investment by Unitus Equity Fund to ramp up their offerings to women self help groups (SHGs) in rural India. Madura Micro Finance will use UEF’s funding to increase its management bandwidth and institutional capacity as well as continue to expand its customer base, which is comprised primarily of women.  [...]

Last night I had the good fortune of sitting in on a talk given by Nancy Barry, a pioneer in the field of creating private, market-based solutions to poverty alleviation for women across the globe. Her talk was very powerful and on many points, spot on accurate in my opinion. A veteran of the World [...]

September 24 marks International Girl Child Day, and this year, CRY (Child Relief and You) is launching a new effort focused solely on discrimination against girls. India PR Wire reports: While highlighting known symbols of discrimination — feticide being the most prominent, the site explores the real reasons behind it, the social structures and patriarchy [...]

A feature on the Deccan Development Society (DDS), an organization aimed to create a self-sustainable ecosystem of dalit women in Andhra Pradesh, in a manner that its leader coins as being “villaged global.” My favorite paragraph: Starting in 1999, the women of the DDS created a market with about 2,000 members, comprising ecological, self-produced food [...]

A few months ago, I discussed the idea of social intrapreneurs based on a SustainAbility case study that featured Hindustan Unilever’s Project Shakti. This month, the World Bank Institute’s publication titled Development Outreach focuses on business and poverty, with an article written by those involved with the same project. The authors describe the project not [...]

Your daily dose of headlines: Health: The governments of India and Bhutan are looking to build a high quality health corridor in the Assam and Bhutan regions. Government: The Ministry of Urban Development has launched an e-Gazzete to better inform the public. The Power of Microfinance: A powerful feature on one 24 year old woman’s [...]