PushpaGujral Science City, Kapurthala, today celebrated the International Women’s Dayby organising an online program. Around 200 students and 100 rural women ofSelf Help Groups (SHGs) from different districts of Punjab participated in theprogram.
Thetheme for this year’s event was "Women in leadership: Achieving an equalfuture in a COVID-19 world”.
Earlierintroducing the program, Dr. Neelima Jerath, Director General, Science Citysaid that a large number of Women in India have successfully broken the glassceiling and are in leadership positions in both private and public sectors andas Entrepreneurs.
Shesaid social media has played an important role in making their voices heard,especially in micro businesses. She informed that in 2018, Niti Aayog launchedthe Women Entrepreneurship Platform, a portal to provide knowledge and supportto women entrepreneurs. The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry hasalso launched a network for women entrepreneurs, Udyam Sakhi, in 2018 to aid,counsel, assist and protect women’s interests through a single portal.
“Onthe eve of International Women’s Day, Mrs. Nita Mukesh Ambani launched ‘HerCircle’, a first of its kind digital networking platform for women which aimsto accelerate women’s empowerment. The COVID pandemic also highlighted womenrole as health care workers, caregivers, innovators and community organizers”,said Dr Jerath.
Mr.Rajat Arora, Policy Programs Manager, Facebook, India and South Asia during hisspecial talk on “Social Media for Livelihood Development” said that digitaltransformation is especially critical for the upliftment of women, who havebeen disproportionately affected by the pandemic, facing job losses and takingup increased household and childcare responsibilities.
Heinformed that Facebook India through its flagship programs - Digital Beti andGoing Online as Leaders (GOAL) is aiming to empower the women participants inareas including leadership, entrepreneurship, digital marketing andindustry-based skills, thereby making them job-ready. Under Digital Beti, 5,000women village level entrepreneurs have trained 2.5 lakh rural beneficiaries in300 districts across 10 states.
Mr.Jaspal Singh, Additional CEO PSRLM was present as a special guest on thisoccasion .During his address, he saidthat due to income from different farm and non-farm activities in rural areasin Punjab, rural women now play a big role decision-making power in theirfamilies and have earned a better standard of living than before. Further,rural farm women in Punjab are managing their small and marginal farms in abetter way and have become Farm Managers by exploring different agricultureentrepreneurship models of farming.
Heinformed that Punjab State Rural Livelihoods Mission (PSRLM) has mobilized 2.24Lakh women SHGs from 4152 villages. Out of these, 17216 rural women weretrained on sustainable Agriculture Livelihoods opportunities.