SEWA's Reema Nanavaty Receives the Hillary Rodham Clinton Award at Georgetown University

19 October 2026National

Reema Nanavaty, Director of India's Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), received the Hillary Rodham Clinton Award at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) in Washington, D.C., for her work on women's economic empowerment, livelihoods, peace and security. A Padma Shri (2013) awardee for social work, she has led SEWA's expansion among informal-sector women workers. The award, instituted in 2014, was presented by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The other 2026 honourees were fashion designer Tory Burch, of the Tory Burch Foundation, and Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of Grameen Bank.

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SEWA, the Self-Employed Women's Association, was founded in 1972 at Ahmedabad by Ela Bhatt as a trade union of informal-sector women workers | Ela Bhatt received the Padma Shri (1985), the Padma Bhushan (1986) and the Ramon Magsaysay Award (1977) | Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank shared the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering microcredit in Bangladesh

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