Professor Shyama Ramani (UNU-MERIT) voted among #100 Women Achievers of India

12 January 2016

Prof. Shyama Ramani of UNU-MERIT has been voted one of the #100 Women Achievers of India in the category of ‘Hygiene and Sanitation’, as part of a contest organised by the Indian Ministry of Women and Child Development in partnership with Facebook.

Prof. Ramani, who runs the Friend in Need Trust in her home state of Tamil Nadu, has been working to make a small Indian village named Kameshwaram, devastated by the 2004 tsunami, as clean as any in the world – and to document the process so that it can be replicated elsewhere. 

She will attend a reception lunch with the President of India, Pranab Kumar Mukherjee, on 22 January 2016 in the Ceremonial Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre, in the President’s Estate in New Delhi.

Shyama Ramani is still grappling with the core problems of sanitation, waste management and safe water. Yet her work has had an impact on various stakeholders in the sanitation sector far beyond the village, as confirmed by this award.

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