Hina Shah receives Bharat Jyoti Award for Entrepreneurship Development

"I am honoured and humbled by this recognition. It gives me a further boost to ensure a positive and vibrant future for the women of India in any given field, be it politics, economics, or social sphere. There is no looking back," Shah said to YourStory.in.

In the past, this award has earlier been presented to luminaries like Mother Teressa, Vice President B.D. Jatti, Sarod Maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, celluloid stars of yesteryear Rajesh Khanna & Shammi Kapoor besides others.

"For me every award is equal so it is impossible for me to say whether this award is higher than any other. An award is the symbol of an acknowledgement from the side of society and people who works towards the development of society," she added.

She further said: I am very much happy that people know that the work I am doing is good. However, I feel now that I am moving in right directions. There are no doubts that such platforms help us to showcase our work and open doors for local and international individuals, organizations and donors to work with us.

Hina Shah has more than 25 years of experience in women enterprise development movement. She has developed variety of Women's Enterprise Development modules for Economic Empowerment of women (poor, low income, educated etc) from urban/rural areas. 

In 1984, she did her Entrepreneurship, Development Training, Achievement, Motivation Monitoring/Evaluation, Strategic Planning and Training from Gujarat Industrial Investment Corporation, India and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A). 

She completed her Master of Science with Chemistry in Small Enterprise/ Management Program from M.S. University of Baroda (Productivity Council) 

About ICECD:

ICECD offers a wide range of development initiatives for women and for organisations working in the areas of Entrepreneurship Development, Micro credit, Micro/small Enterprise Development and Gender Development. With this experience of development work at national / international levels, ICECD targets all categories of poor women from various parts of the world. The Centre, a non-profit voluntary organisation was established in 1986, and since then, has strived to reach women within and beyond the boundaries of India, to as many as 50 developing/under developed countries of Asia, Africa, Caribbean and Pacific regions. 

The essential approach of the Centre is to serve the ever-increasing needs of disadvantaged women through promotion of income generating/self-employment/ entrepreneurship activities. The forte is to take initiatives, formulate strategies and design development and training programmes, which are flexible and easily adaptable to economic realities and multifarious requirements of the disadvantaged women. So far, the direct reach-out is +10,000 women and indirect reach-out through Trainers in India is +2,00,000 women thro' creation of their small enterprises and employment generation. 

The ICECD approach has been replicated successfully in all districts of Gujarat, all states of India and in 50 developing countries. The Institute has recently been recognised as a Centre of Excellence by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) and enjoys the status of a reputed international agency. It has links with the Govts, NGOs, and developmental agencies in Asia, Africa Caribbean and Pacific countries for reaching out to poor women.