New Delhi, October 19, 2013
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Following a rigorous due diligence process, Jubilant Bhartia Foundation and Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship today announced the finalists of the Social Entrepreneur of the Year (SEOY) India Award 2013. These include Breakthrough Trust (founded by Mallika Dutt), Mann Deshi Mahila Bank and Mann Deshi Foundation (founded by Chetna Sinha), Operation ASHA (founded by Dr Shelly Batra) and Yuva Parivartan/KSWA (led by Mrinalini Kher and Kishor Kher). The winner(s) will be chosen by a distinguished jury, and announced at an awards ceremony on November 11, 2013, in New Delhi.
The finalists of the SEOY India Award 2013 are shaping change in fields as diverse as health, financial inclusion, human rights and employability and skilling. A common theme that runs through their models is their work in hostile and inaccessible geographies (i.e. the Naxalite ‘red’ corridor, drought-prone zones, and areas with high incidences of violence). Taken together, our finalists are seeding thousands of first-generation entrepreneurs and change agents in excluded territories, laying the foundations of a truly shining India.
Congratulating the finalists, Shyam S Bhartia, Chairman & Managing Director and Hari S Bhartia, Co Chairman & Managing Director Jubilant Life Sciences and Founder Directors of Jubilant Bhartia Foundation, said, “Breakthrough, Mann Deshi Mahila Bank, Operation ASHA and Yuva Parivartan are demonstrating path breaking models to build inclusion and meet the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) in the country’s forgotten regions. Jubilant Bhartia Foundation looks forward to collaborating and supporting them with linkages and networks to increase their impact and scale.”
According to Hilde Schwab, Co-founder & Chairperson, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, “India remains one of the most dynamic regions for social entrepreneurship and the India Awards consistently attract a high quality of social enterprises. This year, we are also very excited to see an all women finalist pool. They are all working on highly inspiring visions and innovative strategies across critical areas including skill training, livelihoods development, disease control and empowerment of women.”
The SEOY India Award 2013 opened in April this year and received a record 221 applications. Through a five-stage selection process, the four finalists were shortlisted after on-site visits, background research, reference checks and multiple rounds of deliberations. For the first time in the SEOY India Award, all our finalists are women social entrepreneurs, making this a special year for us. |
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| Brief Descriptions of the Finalists |
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Mallika Dutt
Breakthrough Trust
Breakthrough is using media, arts and popular culture to change the mindset, behaviour and practice of gender-based violence. It combines large-scale public service campaigns with mobilization and youth trainings on the ground, to inspire individuals and communities to take a stand and act against violence.
Breakthrough’s campaigns on burning issues of violence trigger multiple community projects and individual stories of change. It has pioneered scientific processes to measure impact and behavior change that its campaigns and field programs create, both at individual and community levels.
Over 15 years, Breakthrough campaigns, such as Bell Bajao (Ring the Bell), have reached more 130 million Indian viewers in multiple phases, won international awards and been adopted by governments and civil society organizations of 6 countries. More than 100,000 individuals and organizations have been trained in 5 states on issues of human rights abuse and gender-based violence. Breakthrough is now partnering with organizations across South Asia, Brazil and South Africa to replicate its model. |
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Chetna Sinha
Mann Deshi Mahila Bank and Mann Deshi Foundation
Or The Mann Deshi Group of Ventures
The Mann Deshi Group of Ventures, headquartered in Mhaswad, Maharashtra, is transforming rural women from daily wage earners into role model entrepreneurs. The Group manages three pioneering institutions that together enable rural women to set up new livelihoods and triple their household incomes: a women-owned rural cooperative bank that extends a range of financial services; a rural mobile MBA school that offers management and entrepreneurship training; and a chamber of commerce for rural women entrepreneurs that facilitates new social networks as well as market and policy linkages.
Working largely in agricultural and drought prone regions in the Deccan Plateau, Mann Deshi has enabled 185,000 women to save, 10,000 to own property and 42,000 to set up businesses and emerge as developers of their local eco-systems. By 2020, MDM aspires to launch 1 million rural women entrepreneurs through partnerships with social enterprises and mainline financial institutions of the country. |
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Dr Shelly Batra
Operation ASHA (op ASHA)
Operation ASHA is tackling the fractured delivery system of India’s TB control program through a doorstep TB detection and treatment service that is low-cost, high quality and accessible for the poor. Powered by technology and community ownership, the op Asha model partners with the government to deliver its C-Dot program to the last-mile. op Asha runs a network of 234 TB treatment centres in slums that are managed by local entrepreneurs and unemployed youth who are trained as professional TB counselors. In rural geographies, op Asha’s mobile treatment service reaches village patients on motorbikes. Its e-Compliance Initiative (a portable biometric patient identification system) has ensured rigorous tracking of patients and reduced default rates to 3% (3-20 times lower than the standard practice).
In 8 years, opAsha has reached 6 million TB patients in India and Cambodia, treated patients with a 90% success rate and lowered the cost of treatment by 15 times of that of other service providers. The model is now being replicated to Uganda and Dominican Republic through partnerships. |
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Mrinalini Kher and Kishor Kher 
Yuva Parivartan (YP)
Yuva Parivartan is making employability and skill training accessible and affordable to the large segment of India’s BPL youth who live in remote and hostile regions. It is building last-mile access, through a web of Livelihoods Development Centres and mobile training camps, that penetrate deep into inaccessible tribal areas. Together they offer a wide bench of quality skill training programs to youth at one-tenth the fee of other providers.
Over four years, YP has skilled 100,000 youth in 16 states, of which 60% have been placed in jobs or set up their own ventures. A majority of its young customers live in tribal heartlands affected by naxalism and terrorism. To dramatically scale its services, YP is professionalizing and aggregating small community organizations, tutorial centres and training institutes that operate in remote areas, into a nationwide employability network. With 200+ partners and NSDC on-board, YP aims to skill 10,00,000 excluded youth by 2015. |
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