CNN Hero Pushpa Basnet

Social worker Pushpa Basnet subsequently honored with 2012 CNN Hero Award as well as CNN Super Hero Award in 2016. She initiated her career in public welfare organization since she was 21 years old. She has completed her graduation degree in Social Work from St. Xavier’s College, Kathmandu. Apart from CNN awards, she has attended Banquet Dinner as a honored guest speaker organized by George Washington Student Organization, Babies Behind Bars in The Cloyd Heck Marvin.

On September 1, 2012, she received The Young ILGA Award by the ILGA Foundation of South Korea. The ILGA award function is established in the memory of Social worker ILGA Kim Yong Ki in 1989, and Pushpa Basnet is the only foreigner to receive the award.

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Founder of Early Childhood Development Center

As a college assignment, she visited the women in prison living with their children behind bars. She was distressed by seeing the condition of women and their children, so decided to raise NRP 70,000 from her friends and family to support. Later on she established an organization called The Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) to provide a daycare program for these children’s.

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ECDC was established in 2005 and afterward, CNN Hero Pushpa Basnet opened a residential home in 2007 for those kids whose parents are locked up in prison. Her residential home for kids served the children with school enrollment, free meals, and medical care.

Pushpa Basnet also initiated a program in 2009 under which she trained female prisoners to make handicrafts and after training them she provided work for them so that they could sustain their livelihood and contribute towards raising their children. In one for her interview she stated that:

“It’s not fair for (these) children to live in the prison because they haven’t done anything wrong…My mission is to make sure no child grows up behind prison walls.”

Pushpa Basnet Achievements & Awards

It’s evident that to run organization she needs funding and interestingly, Top 10 CNN Heroes generally received $50,000 for their works. But on 2012, Pushpa received an additional $250,000 USD to continue her work in Early Childhood Development Center. Some honors received by Pushpa Basnet.