Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

Gaon Connection’s senior reporter Neetu Singh has been awarded the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Woman Mediaperson for the year 2020. The award, which celebrates the work of women journalists, has been awarded to her for her reportage for Gaon Connection, India’s biggest rural media platform, on issues like gender violence, child safety, and women empowerment at large.

“Many congratulations and well done on an excellent work performed, we are sure, in the most challenging of circumstances,” the mail from The Media Foundation stated while congratulating Singh.

The Media Foundation also informed that the awarding jury’s decision to award Singh was unanimous.  

The virtual award function is slated for March 19 at 6 pm and is venued at the India International Centre platform.

Throughout its journalistic journey of eight years, issues like women empowerment, gender violence, atrocities on Dalit have been vital to Gaon Connection, about which it has consistently been steadfast.

Earlier, in November last year, Population First (a social impact organisation that works for women empowerment, gender equality and community mobilization to achieve the social and demographic goals of the country) announced the Laadli Media and Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity 2020, supported by the UNFPA. It was a clean sweep for Gaon Connection which won seven prestigious awards at the virtual ceremony.

Read some of the reports for which Neetu Singh was awarded the Chameli Devi Jain here:

She was raped … became a mother at 12. Meet this Nirbhaya who never made headlines

“No one speaks to me. When my family has neglected me, what can I blame others for?”

She was just nine when her neighbour, 65, dragged her to a field and raped her

“Earlier, I was someone’s daughter, sister, wife and mother. Now, I have my own identity”