Inspired
by their own slogan – "We are Flames, not Flowers" – two Bhopali women
survivors from the 1984 gas disaster, Rashida Bee and Champa Devi
Shukla instituted the Chingari (Embers) Award for Women Against
Corporate Crime. The Award, which includes a trophy, citation and Rs.
50,000 in cash, is one of three things that they decided to do when
they set up the Chingari Trust with the $125,000 Goldman Environmental
Prize received by them in 2004. Shukla and Bee received the award for
sustaining the struggle for justice for the Bhopal survivors against
the combined might of the Indian Government, Union Carbide and its
successor Dow Chemical.
The
Chingari Trust and Awards are an all-women affair. Chingari trustees,
members of the awards jury and the award winners are all women. A jury
of eminent women led by Smt Mahasweta Devi, renowned writer, selects
the winner each year, by first shortlisting three candidates from among
all those nominated and then visiting these three women and their work.
The
Award will be given to an individual rather than an organisation -
however the nominees must come from grassroots peoples' movements. It
will shine a bright light onto the struggles of women who have pitted
themselves against corporate crimes and whose lives have until now been
unsung and unnoticed.
Non-political
and non-sectarian, the Award stresses the need for corporate
accountability, even as it reminds us that we cannot afford more
Bhopals in the name of development. Above all, it will salute the
dedication, invincibility and tenacity of women who have refused to
give up hope.
The
first Chingari Award (given away for the first time in 2007) recipient
was forty-five-year old Mukta Jhodia, a tribal from Orissa's Rayagada
district, who tirelessly led a 14 year struggle against the
Hindalco-led Utkal Alumina's bauxite mining project in her area. She,
along with her community members, stopped the consortium from
exploiting her "bheetamati" - the Motherland and vowed to protect the
fragile environment.
Attached
is a nomination form that we request you to fill up and send back by
March 15th 2008. You can send
the nomination by post or by email to the
following address:
