Suhani Jalota of Myna Mahila Foundation-only Indian nominee for Global Citizen Prize 2020

Suhani Jalota, founder of Myna Mahila Foundation has been awarded Queen’s Young Leader Award & Glamour Magazine’s College Woman of the Year

Deeply distressed by seeing the troubles the women in the slums struggle with on a daily basis, Suhani Jalota, a young woman from Mumbai decided to do something about it. Jalota realised that a dearth of hygiene and a taboo over discussion of topics like sexual harassment and menstrual care make women’s empowerment a challenge.

But determined to be a change maker, Jalota founded the Myna Mahila Foundation in 2015 to work in the domains of women’s health and employment. The foundation operates on three pillars: improving menstrual health, generating employment for women, and building trusted networks for women.

The foundation has been working in urban slum areas and rural communities researching and designing strategies on projects ranging from adolescent girl health, water and sanitation, to social protection policies.

Over the years, Myna Mahila Foundation has come to employ several underprivileged women, giving them proper salaries, training in English, health, self-defence and the confidence to fight and fend for themselves.

One of its flagship programmes currently is Pledge a Period, which provides underprivileged girls with access to sanitary & menstrual health products, and was launched in July 2020. Another campaign, Sponsor A Girl has helped several women and girls better deal with the nitty-gritties of menstrual care. Both campaigns have received support from various Bollywood actors including Tabu, Shilpa Shetty, R. Madhavan, Rohit Roy, ace badminton player Saina Nehwal, entrepreneur Poorna Patel and numerous other influencers.

Meghan Markle at Myna Mahila Foundation in Mumbai (Photo credit: Myna Mahila Foundation)

With gradual development, the organisation has earned recognition from several notable personalities and it was also chosen to be one of the seven charities that benefited from the donations that marked the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Suhani Jalota, the founder of the organisation has been awarded Queen’s Young Leader Award and Glamour Magazine’s College Woman of the Year earlier. Recently, she was also involved in evaluation projects with IDinsight, an independent research organisation, UNICEF and Department of Education in the Philippines for sanitation programs. In the past few years, Suhani has worked in the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, and several cities in India. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Global Health from Duke University, Durham, USA.

Jalota is the only Indian representative among the three finalists for Global Citizen Prize: CISCO Youth Leadership Award.

The award honours an individual aged 18-30 who has contributed meaningfully towards the goal of ending extreme poverty. Upon winning The Global Citizen Prize: CISCO Youth Leadership Award, Myna Mahila Foundation would receive a USD250,000 cash prize that will significantly accelerate their mission of ending period inequality and supporting 2 million girls & women across India by 2025.

“The Global Citizen Prize would help us directly reach 250,000 girls, which is more important than ever during and after this pandemic. We need more scaled-up programs helping millions of girls, which Myna Launchpad, our program for scale, is really equipped to do”, says Jalota.

The final round of the award rests heavily on public voting that will be active from November 17 to November 24. Each vote will go a long way in improving health access and services for girls all over India tangibly, sustainably and comprehensively. The winners will be announced in December, during the final Global Citizen Awards ceremony hosted by Grammy winner and American singer-songwriter John Legend.

“In last five years, Myna Mahila has made a tremendous impact on the lives of women in slums in Mumbai. Suhani her team on the ground is poised to help 2 million women by 2025 across India,” senior technology professional and entrepreneur Rajeev Kumar Singh, who is also a  member of board of directors of Myna Mahila Foundation, tells Media India Group.

Calling upon people to vote for Jalota and the underprivileged women of India, Singh says “Anyone can join Myna Mahila Foundation on this journey to end period poverty in India, by placing their votes for Suhani Jalota, here.”