Jaya Arunachalam

Arunachalam died on June 29, 2019, after an illness that lasted for two weeks. She spent her last days in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

She is a recipient of many awards such as Global Leadership Award for Economic Development from Vital Voices, International Activist Award (2003) from the Gliestman Foundation, California, and the Rashtriya Ekta Award from the National Awareness Forum, India. The Government of India awarded her the fourth highest civilian award of Padma Shri in 1987 by the Union Government of India and the Stree Shakti Puraskar by the State Government of Tamil Nadu in 2002. She received the Jamnalal Bajaj Award in 2009. In 2010, she was chosen for the Social Lifetime Achievement Award in the Godfrey Philips National Bravery Awards.

In 1981, Arunachalam initiated India's first cooperative organization for poor women, the Indian Cooperative Network for Women. This was established as an attempt to create an informal banking structure for women working in an informal setting. It works in sync with the Working Women's Forum, to provide loans and financial assistance to poor women.

Jaya Arunachalam was an Indian social worker and the founder of Working Women's Forum, a non-governmental organization based in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, working for the welfare of marginalized women. Starting in 1978, she channeled her activities under the aegis of the forum for organizing poor working women and provided them with seed capital to start their small business or to develop their existing business.

In 1978, Arunachalam founded the Working Women's Forum, an organization that aims to organize and unite women working in the informal sector, especially small-scale traders and sellers. By doing so, the WWF is able to identify and address the problems faced by women in unorganized professions, with a view to make policy decisions and empower these women through the provision of facilities such as training, credit, material inputs, etc. In line with any other worker union, the WWF allows women to collectively demand better working conditions, social and political rights.

Arunachalam was born on 8 February 1935 in Tamil Nadu in a Brahmin family and has a master's degree in economics and geography. She was a member of the governing council of the Society for International Development, Rome, and was recognized as the first South Asian woman to join the council.

Arunachalam was born on 8 February 1935 in Tamil Nadu, India, to a Brahmin family. After obtaining her master's degree, in 1955 she married a Chettiar man who, despite being educated, was not approved of by her parents. She was shunned by her family, including her parents and six sisters, who after the death of her mother reconciled with her.