Uttara Padwar is an Indian charity worker from

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...

who was awarded the

Nari Shakti Puraskar The Nari Shakti Puraskar () is an annual award given by the Ministry of Women and Child Development of the Government of India to individual women or to institutions that work towards the cause of women empowerment. It is presented by the presi ...

in 2013.

Life

Uttara Padwar is from Madhya Pradesh where she leads a "Prayas Shiksha Samiti". This group works with Baigas,

Gondi people The Gondi (Gōṇḍī) or Gond people, who refer to themselves as "Kōītōr" (Kōī, Kōītōr), are an ethnolinguistic group in India. Their native language, Gondi language, Gondi, belongs to the Dravidian languages, Dravidian family. They ...

and the Abhujhmarias. These tribal people suffer from poverty, malnutrition and disease and her group strives to alleviate it. Padwar started teaching children and her small class grew into a school which was registered with the name "Rani Durgawati School". One of the common causes of death locally is fire as people will make a mattress of dried grasses and then go to sleep beside a fire. They then die when their mattress catches alight. A related problem is cold as each winter people need to decide between warm clothing and eating. Padwar and her charity supply "winter kits". The kits consist of warm clothes, woollens and blankets and they can save families thousands of rupees each year. Padwar was chosen to receive the

/Stree Shakti Puraskar on International Women's Day in 2016. The award was made by President

Pranab Mukherjee Pranab Kumar Mukherjee ( ; born, 11 December 1935 – 31 August 2020) was an Indian statesman who served as the president of India from 2012 until 2017. He was the first person from West Bengal to hold the post of President of India. In a pol ...

at the

Presidential palace A presidential palace is the official residence of the president in some countries. Some presidential palaces were once the official residences to monarchs in former monarchies that were preserved during those states' transition into republics. ...

in New Delhi. Another fourteen women and seven institutions were honoured that day. Mukherjee and the Prime Minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

gave speeches about the need to empower women. Mukherjee highlighted the problem of the higher number of male babies due to some parents choosing to have an abortion if their child is female. She is profiled for her work in the media and she has been recognised with other awards.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Padwar, Uttara Living people Indian educators Year of birth missing (living people) People from Madhya Pradesh Nari Shakti Puraskar winners