Bangalore: Chintan, an outstanding Indian NGO and Samasource, a non-profit organization based in U.S were recognized with the first innovation award for the Empowerment of Women and Girls. Dr.Judith Rodin, president of Rockefeller Foundation and Hillary Clinton, Secretary of state presented the awards recently to the founders of the associations.

The Rockefeller Foundation, a New York based philanthropic organization, funded the awards, amounting $500,000, each through the Secretary’s International Fund for Women and Girls.

Bharati Chaturvedi, founder of Chintan received the award and she made it clear that she was receiving the award for of all those Indian women and small girls who pick trash.

"The organization that I work with, Chintan creates green jobs. We convert waste into social wealth, not just wealth. And these women I work with, their children don't go to school. It's hard for them to get in because there's a lot of discrimination, and they experience a new kind of untouchability, even though what they're doing is recycling our trash in a country that's becoming more and more affluent," she said, reports Economic Times.

They are working towards guiding and organizing waste pickers and eradicating child labour from their ranks.

"Chintan's efforts have reached more than 20,000 waste pickers in India in the past five years. More than 2,000 children have been pulled out of the trash heaps and put on a path toward education and opportunity," Clinton said.

"We will use this award to get a lot of young girls into school out the trash heaps, but also create more and more green jobs for women waste pickers. But most of all, because poor women feel and experience the brunt of climate change, we also want to talk about how they can be foot soldiers in the battle against climate change." 

Samasource is a social enterprise that joins poor people with work opportunities via the internet, which was founded by Leila Janah, an Indian American. The association gives the required skills and capital to women and youth to deliver in-demand digital services to U.S. and other international firms.