Aim Driven Women and An Entrepreneur, Zarina Screwvala

Zarina Screwvala is an Indian businesswoman and philanthropist who founded the Swades Foundation and serves as its Managing Trustee full-time. Swades Foundation, formerly known as SHARE (Society to Heal Aid Restore Educate), is dedicated to empowering rural India through holistic and sustainable growth by forming partnerships with rural India, corporates, young India, the government, and other foundations to effect long-term, irreversible change.

She went to India from the United States when she was eight years old and completed her education at J.B. Petit School for Girls, as well as earning a Bachelor’s degree from Xavier’s Institute of Communications. She began her work as a production manager for a play directed by a well-known theater director Pearl Padamsee.
She co-founded UTV with Ronnie and their business partner Deven Khote in 1990, which aired India’s first-ever reality show, Saanp Seedi, in 1992. The company that is now Disney UTV was formerly one of India’s most powerful media and entertainment companies. UTV Bindass, UTV Stars, UTV Action, and Hungama TV are just a few of the hugely successful broadcast companies she has helped develop. She also oversaw the conception and launch of Astro Ceria, a popular kids’ channel in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Zarina founded UTV’s CSR arm, Society to Heal, Aid, Restore, and Educate (SHARE), in 2004 to empower people in Maharashtra’s villages. SHARE was renamed Swades Foundation in 2012, and it is committed solely to rural empowerment in Maharashtra’s Raigad and Ratnagiri districts.
Zarina’s major goal with the organization is to educate and teach a million individuals to raise themselves out of poverty. Her foundation is dedicated to four main areas: health and nutrition, education, water and sanitation, and economic development. Swades Foundation has reached out to 2700 hamlets/villages in Maharashtra’s Raigad and Nashik districts since 2013. Engage, empower, execute, and exit are the foundation’s 4E strategies.