Pushpa Gujral Science City, Kapurthala, today celebrated the International Women’s Day by organising an online program. Around 200 students and 100 rural women of Self Help Groups (SHGs) from different districts of Punjab participated in the program.
The theme for this year’s event was "Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”.
Earlier introducing the program, Dr. Neelima Jerath, Director General, Science City said that a large number of Women in India have successfully broken the glass ceiling and are in leadership positions in both private and public sectors and as Entrepreneurs.
She said social media has played an important role in making their voices heard, especially in micro businesses. She informed that in 2018, Niti Aayog launched the Women Entrepreneurship Platform, a portal to provide knowledge and support to women entrepreneurs. The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry has also launched a network for women entrepreneurs, Udyam Sakhi, in 2018 to aid, counsel, assist and protect women’s interests through a single portal.
“On the eve of International Women’s Day, Mrs. Nita Mukesh Ambani launched ‘Her Circle’, a first of its kind digital networking platform for women which aims to accelerate women’s empowerment. The COVID pandemic also highlighted women role as health care workers, caregivers, innovators and community organizers”, said Dr Jerath.
Mr. Rajat Arora, Policy Programs Manager, Facebook, India and South Asia during his special talk on “Social Media for Livelihood Development” said that digital transformation is especially critical for the upliftment of women, who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, facing job losses and taking up increased household and childcare responsibilities.
He informed that Facebook India through its flagship programs - Digital Beti and Going Online as Leaders (GOAL) is aiming to empower the women participants in areas including leadership, entrepreneurship, digital marketing and industry-based skills, thereby making them job-ready. Under Digital Beti, 5,000 women village level entrepreneurs have trained 2.5 lakh rural beneficiaries in 300 districts across 10 states.
Mr. Jaspal Singh, Additional CEO PSRLM was present as a special guest on this occasion .During his address, he said that due to income from different farm and non-farm activities in rural areas in Punjab, rural women now play a big role decision-making power in their families and have earned a better standard of living than before. Further, rural farm women in Punjab are managing their small and marginal farms in a better way and have become Farm Managers by exploring different agriculture entrepreneurship models of farming.
He informed that Punjab State Rural Livelihoods Mission (PSRLM) has mobilized 2.24 Lakh women SHGs from 4152 villages. Out of these, 17216 rural women were trained on sustainable Agriculture Livelihoods opportunities.