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| Resume of Achievements ... |
| About Hina Shah |
Hina Shah was born to Mr. Dilip Bhuptani, metallurgical engineer working as the manager with TATA Steel, and Mrs.Pushpa Bhuptani, an artist and social worker. While she was born and brought up in Jamshedpur, she studied her MSc. at the Maharaja Sayajirao University – Vadodara. Having been brought up in Jamshedpur, she grew up to learn classical dance at Ravidra Parishad, and won numerous awards with her natural and graceful dancing skills even as a child. She has 3 younger brothers.
Raj Bhuptani, who is an engineer from IIT Kanpur is an entrepreneur by profession... |
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Vijay Bhuptani, who is an academician ...and Ajay Bhuptani who is heading the Union National Bank – Abu Dhabi. Married to industrialist Ashok Shah, she has two daughters. Shital, who is an MBA, and Shaina who is a Chartered Accountant.
A progressive personality, but who believes that the sari is the most graceful attire a woman can wear; one invariably finds her in her trademark silk sarees. Hina - A home maker, a classical dancer, an entrepreneur and the director of International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Career Development(ICECD) is perfectly comfortable in each role. In a man’s world, she has created a niche for herself with path breaking innovative ideas. With verve and panache, she moves from strength to strength breaking new grounds with her bold initiatives.
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| 1980 – THE BEGINNING… |
With a firm belief that economic empowerment is a powerful tool to be used as a starting point for overall empowerment of the women in socio-cultural, political, physical and religious fields, the first experiment of this strategy was initiated by Hina in 1980, when a Ford Foundation study revealed that most women development activities were welfare oriented, in which women were considered “acceptor” and not an active participant. Self-sustainability and growth were not even thought of.
The first programme, termed as Entrepreneurship Development programme for women, was started with 25 women of Gujarat, out of which 16 women established their non-traditional businesses, and all of them are still in business in the year 2010. This has clearly demonstrated the sustainability of the development approach at women’s economic empowerment. (One of these 16 entrepreneurs has even gone on to win the innovative entrepreneurs of the year award by TATA-TIE this year) Hina’s dream was to expand this movement so as to take the movement to every nook and corner of the country, specifically to the disadvantaged and poor women. She felt the need of a specific national/international level organization, with no limitations or defined boundaries, to work for these women. |
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| 1986 – BUILDING AN INSTITUTION – ICECD |
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In 1986, she transformed her own entrepreneurial experience into a developmental initiative and started “The International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Career Development (ICECD)”. ICECD is a unique institute for women entrepreneurship, and is recognized as a Centre for excellence by the United Nations ESCAP and has facilitated thousands of disadvantaged women to become entrepreneurs not only in the various states of India but all over the developing world.
Hina Shah’s relentless efforts to change the face of the deprived, dependent women of rural India created a noteworthy impact. Rural women – working at a measured and contended pace, some are working at their small vending-trading shops, some manufacture garments, spices, leather/ Rexene products and packing boxes in their small work places, and some are busy providing services like cycle repair. They go back home in the evening, with Rs. 50-500 profit in their hands : quite a substantial sum for them.
These are the women who hardly involved themselves in income generation and always despaired. They were the poorest of the poor in the village, illiterate, with no land and a ramshackle hut, with many children to feed. They were subject to exploitation and abuse, they along-with their children lived at the edge of survival – a specter of living dead – with no hope.
When these women became involved in our development initiative called “Rural Women Enterprise/Business Development Programme",”for which they were selected based on their strengths as individuals, they learnt essentially two things :
- How to take charge of their lives with dignity and confidence
- How to initiate/ run and manage their micro enterprises/businesses.
Their status improved as they began their little businesses, earned, started spending profits on improving their lives; family diet; health and other essentials, and started sending their children to school.
Their self-esteem and confidence blossomed. They have savings in place, and are confident, healthier, better fed and housed, better informed and respected in the community. There has been an irrevocable change in the role of women in these deeply backward areas. |
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| THE TRUE LEADERSHIP |
| Hina Shah has helped the organization to grow and transform by her vision, mission oriented responsive leadership, which has led to an equally focused and motivated team of capable human resource. Her unique characteristic has been in not only defining organization goals, but also in analyzing the existing situation and identifying areas of inadequacy, quest for alternate strategies and initiating, managing and sustaining change. ICECD activities have grown because of her sense of purpose, pursuit, perseverance and perceptiveness. |
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| ENABLING WOMEN’S JOURNEY TO EMPOWERMENT |
As the Women Economic Development strategy was recognized and well established, ICECD expanded the activities to many NGOs and grassroots organizations all over India. Since then, it has established itself as a premier organization in the country for Women’s Economic Empowerment, and has developed models and strategies, that include awareness building, capacity building through training and education, linkages with support agencies and making women mainstream economic partners. By the year 2010, ICECD has trained + 10,000 women directly with its own team, has trained +2500 trainers/extension workers of +650 organizations working for women in India, who in turn have trained over 2 lakh grassroots women. |
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Not limiting itself to just this, as this work can not be done in isolation, ICECD has worked at different levels with policy makers, support agencies, international agencies and the community at large for creating a conducive environment for women'’ economic empowerment, and leading them to over all empowerment. It has undertaken development of Social empowerment modules (health, education, human rights etc.) and political empowerment modules, which have been again disseminated to others.
Hina Shah’s commitment became instrumental in initiating and institutionalizing Women Economic Empowerment strategy in countries like Zambia, Bangladesh, Lesotho, Botswana, Cameroon, Malaysia, Philippines, Jordan, Sri Lanka, Guyana, Ivory Coast, St. Kitts, and many others spanning the continents of Asia, Africa, Pacific and the Caribbean. By the year 2010, the Women Economic Empowerment strategy has been taken to over 60 countries. ICECD has also brought in organizations/trainers from 54 countries to India in their international training programmes for dissemination of the Women Economic Empowerment Development (WED) strategy and for demonstration of the output of the strategy.
Today, over 10,00,000 women have benefited in India and in developing countries in rural, urban and tribal areas
- Total investments created in India = Rs 195 Crores
- Total Investment created in other countries = Rs 620 Crores
ICECD’s directly trained 100,000 women entrepreneurs have further created employment for 300,000 unemployed women of India.
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| HINA SHAH – BEYOND ICECD |
With the kind of impact that her developmental initiatives have created on the world map, Hina Shah is a name to recon with at a global level. However, she has many more dimensions of herself, which, put together define her vibrant self. |
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Hina Shah – the painter |
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The canvases painted by Hina Shah form a part of many a art collector’s pride, around the globe. Her paintings occupy important places at various art galleries of India. Majority of her paintings are oil paintings which are a blend of impressionism and contemporary work. Her paintings reflect joy and vibrancy, and have received applause and recognition by art lovers and critics.
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A recent exhibition of the paintings at Nehru Centre – Mumbai was extremely well received, and was visited by over 7000 art lovers. Having won several awards for painting, Hina Shah continues to add to her collection of over 50 paintings created by her. She desires to promote Indian Painters through an Art Gallery which she wants to create, where deserving Indian artists would get international recognition and global platform. |
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Hina Shah - the danseuse |
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She took her first step of dance at a tender age of five. Attracted by the marvel of this art, Hina’s intuition and innocence led her from the thrill and excitement of her first steps at Rabindra Parishad to the specialised steps in the Odissi style of Indian classical dance. Since then, Hina has stepped from mastery to originality. She went on to winning district/state and national level prizes and was chosen to direct a dance drama for All India Radio(AIR) at the age of fourteen.
The meticulous dance training by her guru Sri. Indrakumar Patnaik Mohanti in Orissa coupled with her passion for dance gave Hina’s talent an extra sharpness and richness. She has given dance performances all over India, and in Europe, and has received acclaim from both-people and press.
Being the foremost exponent of Odissi in Gujarat, her dance school ‘Moksh’ has trained many odissi dancers in the state. Her most recent performance at the Modhera Dance Festival was highly appreciated, wherein she performed with both her daughters in a three hour concert. According to one of the press reviews, they continue to mesmerise the audiences with the grace and agility on stage.
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Hina Shah – academician |
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Being an entrepreneur herself and having taught entrepreneurship to thousands through her initiatives at ICECD, Hina Shah started a school called “Satyamevajayate International School” in 2001. Through this school she teaches ‘Entrepreneurship’ to students, 1st standard onwards. She has designed specialised modules, through which she teaches the students the nuances of Business Management and Entrepreneurship from an early age of 6, whereby, the child would develop into a person with capability to be able to start his own enterprise by the time he/she passes out from the school. Thereby, he/she, instead of looking for a job for himself/herself - would be developed into a job creator for others.
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Students at Satyamevajayate International School also learn skills like carpentry, electrification, classical dance(including boys) and gardening, whereby they develop independence in day to day activities and also grow up as socially responsible citizens of our country. Maximum strength of the classes is limited to 15 per class, in order to be able to truly develop these children as per Ms Shah’s vision.
Besides, Hina Shah has also designed syllabus of Entrepreneurship Courses for various schools and colleges. |
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Though her work has taken her to over 60 countries world over, her heart is at home. she is a proud Indian, and believes India is full of opportunities for those who want to progress and succeed. While she is fond of Indian cuisine, food comes last on her list of priorities. a simple eater, with extraordinary fitness to carry on a dance performance for 3 hours, ensuring a spell bound audience!
For Hina Shah, the world is truly but a stage... where she doesn’t look for guarantees and warranties. She pursues possibilities and opportunities. |
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| HINA SHAH – in her own words… |
“My vision continues to be THE ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN, but the final mission is the achievement of FULL EQUALITY and TOTAL ALROUND DEVELOPMENY of WOMEN. My efforts will culminate only when women from all strata of the society, particularly the disadvantaged and the poor, will achieve a sense of overall empowerment through meaningful participation and decision making at family, community and policy levels.
This empowerment process starts with changes in consciousness and in self perception of women. This has been the most explosively creative, energy releasing transformation, one from which there is no looking back. Our Women Empowerment Strategies have tapped powerful reservoirs of hope and enthusiasm among women who used to view themselves negatively.
I perceive a very positive and vibrant future for the women of India. They will enjoy better status in family, community and society as well as in the professional field. We have successful women role models, who have proven that they have the capability to succeed in any given field, be it politics, economics, or social sphere.
In future, I see myself having reached out to every woman of India, realising my dream of seeing these women as independent decision makers, entrepreneurs and socially and economically empowered in the true sense.” |
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