The editorial staff of Indian New England news named Gouri Banerjee as its 2005 Woman of the Year. The announcement was made at a Gala Awards Dinner held on June 17, 2005 at the Newton Marriott Hotel in Newton, Mass.

Ms. Banerjee, who lives in Winchester, is a founding member and director of the domestic violence program of Saheli, a Burlington, Mass.-based non-profit organization that has been helping South Asian women with a variety of issues and challenges for the past nine years. She also serves as associate professor of information technology at Emmanuel College. She was chosen from a list of 20 finalists.

This year's two runners-up were Sgt. Alpa Ladani and Dr. Veena Desai. Sgt. Ladani, the first runner-up, is a medic with the Connecticut Army National Guard who spent 15 months in Iraq before returning home this past February. She will receive the Army Commendation Medal, given to members of the Armed Services who distinguish themselves by heroism, meritorious achievement or service. Dr. Desai, the second runner-up, is a two-time winner of the Republican Senatorial Medal of Freedom, and the winner of the 2004 Congressional Order of Merit. These days, the 73-year-old is championing for doctors' rights, and also consults at Bay State and Mercy Medical Centers, and volunteers her services at a clinic for under served women called Caring Health Center.

Usha Vakil , co-founder of  Saheli ,  who nominated Dr. Banerjee for the award was very pleased to hear that her candidate was the winner. “Dr. Banerjee’s leadership role in the community led to women coming to her looking for support against the violence they were experiencing.  Since we have known Gouri, we have seen her move our community on this issue of women and especially domestic violence. She began by assisting victims but continued by forcing community recognition and outrage against domestic violence. We as a community now recognize and acknowledge the issue because Dr. Banerjee worked to bring it to the forefront of our agenda by speaking about it in community forums and educating our community via conferences and other speaking events. She has shown her compassion to the cause of woman and is fiercely committed to improving the lives of abused and homeless woman” said Vakil.

The other finalists were Dr. Radhika Basheer Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Gauri Chandna Founder, ATFS Learning Center, Archana Dubey Founder of Learning Center;  Chandra Ganapathy Director, Nutrition Services, Meals on Wheels Program, Jaya Ganta, Executive Board Member, Read to Succeed, Sharmila Ghosh  Founder, Cross Collaborations, Inc. , Kiran Jain  Director, Marketing and Route Development, Bradley International Airport, Hartford, Conn. Monika Jain Editor,  Kahani magazine, Sangita Joshi  Financial advisor for Prudential Financial , Madavi Nathan Oliver , Biomedical research engineer, Harvard University, Dr. Annaswamy Raji , Endocrinologist, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cheri Rodrigues Chief Financial Officer, Paige Academy  Ranjani Saigal Co-founder, Lokvani,  Mousumi Shaw , Founder, president, Sikara, Yoshika Sherring , President, Arrow Nuclear Strategies, Inc, Gitika Srivastava , President, Skyris Networks and Jaya Vijayasekar
District World language Coordinator, Vernon Public Schools, Vernon, Conn.

Shobha Shastry of Alankar Decor felicitated the finalists with a beautiful flower bouquet.  The list of finalists was impressive. How did the editorial staff make the final decision? “We took many, many hours to narrow down our selection and considered many factors: giving back to community, juggling many responsibilities, professional achievement, profile in communities, letters of recommendation etc. We had a back and forth between Sgt. Ladani and Prof. Banerjee for the final slot. Finally the fact that Dr. Banerjee work helps South Asian women in distress and that she has been doing this for many years, swung our vote in her favor. But it was a very, very close vote’ said Poornima Apte who lead the effort to identify the finalists.

Lokvani congratulates the winners and wishes them the very best of luck.

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