Helping India’s working women nets Thakore award
Self-employed women in India have made great strides thanks to the life-long efforts of Elaben Bhatt.
The internationally known women’s rights activist will receive the 2009 Thakore Visiting Scholar award on Oct. 2. She is being recognized for spearheading improvements to working conditions and compensation for working women in India, and for forming the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).
The India Club of Vancouver and the Thakore Charitable Foundation sponsor the award jointly with the Institute for the Humanities at SFU. The award honours people who show qualities valued by Gandhi - creativity, commitment, and a concern for truth, justice and non-violence.
A lawyer by training, Bhatt founded SEWA in 1972 in the city of Ahmedabad. It is the largest single trade union in India with close to 1.1 million members.
“Her life-long contributions encompass the women’s movement, democratic alternatives to large bureaucracies, civil disobedience and working for the welfare and autonomy of self-employed women who work in all walks of life, “ says Jerry Zaslove, professor emeritus and former director of the humanities institute.
Bhatt is also a co-founder of Women’s World Banking and the author of We are Poor but So Many; the story of self-employed women in India, published by Oxford (2006).
The award will be presented to Bhatt during the Gandhi commemorative event at SFU’s Burnaby campus on Oct. 2 (the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi).
The free event is open to all and begins with the garlanding of the Gandhi bust in Peace Square at 6:45 P.M. (in an open courtyard south of the chemistry wing) followed by the award presentation at 7:30 p.m. in Images Theatre (northwest concourse of the Academic Quadrangle).
This year marks the 140th birth anniversary of Gandhi. The United Nations has declared Oct. 2 the International Day of Nonviolence. As well this year, the World March for Peace will start from New Zealand on Oct. 2, which will see people around the world participating in walkathons for peace. The march will reach Canada by November.
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Mrs. J. Shrivastava
This is great privilege for me to see Mrs. Elaben Bhatt on SFU campus.
Her work and reforms for deprived women in India speak louder than some articles written on her. The Thakore Visiting Scholar award is another feather in her celebrated frame; and also an honour for all women attached to her organisation in India and abroad.
While working, for some time during my undergraduate studies in India, for and with SEWA, I saw the real picture of socio-political depression that poor women, in particular, face not only in India but all around the world. Being a true Gandhian, Elaben keep on striving the way she could and asked women to join in majority.
After ten years, I will see her again on Campus; however, I already feel the same strength, and fortitude that I felt when I was with SEWA in India.
My family and I convey our heartiest congratulations to Ms Bhatt and to all women fraternity for this proud moment.