India NGO bags UN climate award
An Indian NGO, Swayam Shikshan Prayog, has bagged the UN climate award this year. The NGO, which trains women to become clean energy entrepreneurs across Maharashtra and Bihar, is one of the 13 projects to be recognised at the forthcoming UN climate summit in Marrakesh in November. In an official release, the UNFCCC, the nodal UN climate body, has applauded this project for building a rural distribution network of 1,100 women entrepreneurs facilitating access to clean energy, water and sanitation products and services in several communities. Prema Gopalan, co-founder of Swayam Shikshan Prayog, who has worked for ten years in the clean energy sector, told that many of the women in her NGO hail from the Marathwada drought-hit areas and have attained a new identity as a result of their entrepreneurial work. “They have learnt to be better community leaders. The initiatives they have undertaken are both sustainable and scalable,” she said. The NGO, founded in 1989 in Mumbai, has received financial support from the Maharashtra government, USAID, Miseorer, Europe, and CSR funds from HSBC and Alstom, till now.
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