In news– To highlight the impact of women in sanitation and waste management, the Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs has announced the WINS Awards 2023 on the eve of International Women’s Day.
About WINS awards-
- The WINS Awards 2023 aim to recognize celebrate and disseminate inspiring and exemplary initiatives in urban sanitation and waste management by women led organizations and individual women.
- Applications for the Awards are open to Self-Help Groups (SHGs), Micro-enterprises, Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), Startups and Individual Women Leaders/Swachhata champions.
- Thematic areas for considering the applications include-
- Management of Community/Public Toilets.
- Septic Tanks Cleaning Services.
- Treatment Facilities (Used Water/Septage).
- Municipal Water collection and /or Transportation.
- Operation of Material Recovery Facilities.
- Waste to Wealth products.
- Treatment Facilities (Solid Waste Management).
- IEC, Training, Capacity Building.
- Technology and Intervention and Others.
- Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) will evaluate entries & nominate up to 5 applicants to the State via the Swachhatam portal. ULBs can organize public felicitation of their nominees as city winners.
- ULB wise nominations will be evaluated at the State level. Up to 3 entries in each category will be nominated by the State to Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).
- State can organize public felicitation of nominees as State winners. State nominations will be evaluated at the national level on their innovativeness, impact, uniqueness, sustainability & replicability.
- At the national level, the MoHUA team will set up a Jury to evaluate the applications and select winners in each category.
- The Jury shall comprise of stakeholders from cities and States, independent experts, brand ambassadors, influencers and industry representatives. Winning entries will be featured in a compendium.
nternational Women’s Day-
- The goal behind Women’s Day is to spread the message of gender equality, celebrate the achievements and contributions of women in different spheres, and work towards building a society free of all gender biases, stereotypes, gender parity and discrimination.
- The theme for International Women’s Day 2023 is DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.
- The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
- The IWD celebration started with women’s rights movements in the US, Russia and other European countries where they demanded civil, social, political and religious rights for women.
- First National Woman’s Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on February 28, 1909.
- In 1910, a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen, where woman named Clara Zetkin (Leader of the ‘Women’s Office’ for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women’s Day.
- IWD was marked for the first time in March 1911 – and the date was fixed as 8 March in 1913.
- The United Nations celebrated it for the first time in 1975.
Note- India celebrates Sarojini Naidu’s birthday as National Women’s Day every year on February 13. She was born on February 13, 1879.
Source: PIB
