Educating and empowering the women community are the most powerful weapons to bridge the gender gap, said Deputy High Commissioner, Great Britain, Andrew Fleming here on Thursday. During his address at the national research conference on the eve of International Women’s Day organised by Yes We Can and DEEDS, NGOs, in partnership of United Nations, Mr. Fleming said that educating and empowering the rural women who comprise one fourth of the world’s population remains the biggest challenge.
Citing Malala Yousafzai, the girl from Pakistan, who had braved bullet to pursue studies, Mr. Fleming said that women should take a pledge to pick up books and pens, study and be empowered.
“I have seen the weavers from Mangalagiri who do not want their children to take up their profession. Instead they want them to go to schools and that is a big change,” Mr. Fleming said.
Reducing the gender disparity is not an easy task and there is 24 % of workforce struggle with gender pay gap. Most of the women’s work is unpaid for and these basic issues should be addressed to enable women take up leadership, entrepreneurship and form social protection.
Change makers
National Information Officer, for India and Bhutan, UN, Rajiv Chandran said that women are change makers and added that all human rights should be for all human beings. Divisional Railway Manager, Guntur, V.G. Bhooma said that empowerment of women should come from within themselves and asked the women to own up their roles and work out their own support systems. Guntur MP Jayadev Galla said that 50% of seats in all elected bodies and jobs should be reserved for women.
Later, the guests launched the Reach to Teach - a month long SDG campaign and released the abstract copies of the workshop. Founders of Yes We Can Stephen Anurag and DEEDS, Vijay Vardhan , political economy advisor, BDHC, Nalini Raghuraman were present.
