Email
Print
ShareBangalore: EdelGive Social Innovation Honours 2010, an initiative by Edelweiss in partnership with Kubera Partners, is here yet again to recognise, promote and support innovations of women's organisations.
Help, especially for a social organisation, comes with publicity. An awareness of the organisation's work makes possible a plethora of opportunities for the socially-responsible who are looking for ways to help and also for big financial enterprises which always tailor projects that help the socio-economically backward.
One such initiative is the brainchild of Edelweiss which gave birth to EdelGive foundation in 2008. Their first project concentrated on the empowerment of the girl child. Gilroy Correia, project lead of EdelGive Social Innovation Honours, says, "While we saw tremendous response for the girl child initiative, we also noticed that several organisations weren't able to participate because of the age limit. So, this time we decided to include all women."
Edelweiss with Kubera Partners, a private equity firm investing in cross-border companies, will expand their project this time to involve women so as to include a wider category.
Gilroy explains, "We decided to keep the focus on the gender since we did not want to dilute our reach. When it comes to women's issues, you don't have to dig deep. There are various issues like women's education, mental health, slum dwellers empowerment, empowering the tribal women, etc. So we decided by concentrating on women alone, we could cover all the spaces which need attention when it comes to the empowerment of women."
The participation involves a four stage evaluation process which includes an initial application, short listing by an internal jury, visits by a field assessor and final selection by an external jury of eminent persons. This year winners will be chosen from five categories with a prize money of Rs50 lakhs.
Once the applications have been received, shortlisting of entries begins. "Innovation of idea and implementation are the criteria for deciding the winners. We have a team of advisors, tabulators and field assessors from Ernst and Young, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and Institute of Rural Management Anand who will check if the ideas are being effectively implemented by the organisations," says Gilroy.
Participants can be from anywhere in the country. Gilroy extends an invitation to organisations in the city, "Any social organisation working with women in any or all of the five sectors of health and well being, education, livelihood, social and cultural rights and governance, is welcome to apply. We are looking forward to building relationships with these organisations and in turn help bring about change."
