Prema Gopalan | |
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| Died | 29 March 2022  |
Prema Gopalan (1955/1956 – 29 March, 2022) was an Indiansocial activist. She co-founded the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC) in 1984. She then founded and has been executive director ofSwayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) for over 20 years, supporting poor rural women in entrepreneurial schemes. She is also well known for disaster relief work inBihar,Gujarat,Kerala,Maharashtra andTamil Nadu. Gopalan has received awards from theUnited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and theUnited Nations Development Programme. She died on 29 March 2022 after a short illness at the age of 66.[1]
Prema Gopalan was born inPune, India.[2] She held an MA insocial work and completed a M.Phil. in sociology and research methodology.[3]
Prema Gopalan was a co-founder withSheela Patel of SPARC in 1984. She started SSP in 1993, aiming to put rural poor women at the center of decentralized and democratic methods of self-management.[4] SSP functioned as a self-education network within SPARC until it (in association with the Government ofMaharashtra) redesigned and implemented a widespread community participation strategy across 1200 villages in theearthquake-hit districts ofLatur andOsmanabad.[5] Gopalan has also worked with support efforts following the2001 Gujarat earthquake, the2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and floods inBihar and Kerala.[6]SSP has helped women entrepreneurs to start businesses in these recovering zones.[2]
Gopalan has been made both anAshoka Fellow and a Synergos Fellow.[7] TheUnited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) presented her with the Momentum for Change Award 2016 and the following year she won anEquator Prize from theUnited Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In 2018, Gopalan was presented with Social Entrepreneur of the Year award by theSchwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.[8]
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