Islamabad celebrated International Rural Women’s day

Islamabad celebrated International Rural Women’s day

A two day conference was organized by Lok Virsa (National Institute of Folk and Traditional Heritage), Potohar Organization for Development Advocacy (PODA) and Ministry of Information & Broadcasting in collaboration with several other institutions on Sunday at Shakarparian.

The event was held on an International Rural Women’s day and the root cause of the event was to observe the rights of rural women and development of plans for peace in Pakistan. The conference also highlighted different issues but focused primarily on the empowerment of women.

Daughter of our Prime Minister, Faiza Gillani inaugurated the festival. Her presence indicated government willingness to help the rural women come forward and was thoroughly appreciated by the audience.

If reports are to be believed, women from hundred districts participated in the conference-cum-festival where there were plenty of items to choose from including craftsmanship by craftswomen from different parts of the country.

NGOs were also included in the limelight and added promotional stall into the event. The stalls included promotional videos on women motivation and Musical shows.

Unlike previous year, there were plenty of partners for the event namely Action Aid, United Nations Entity for Gender Equity and the Empowerment of Women, Royal Norwegian Embassy, Ministry of Human Rights, Alliance against Sexual Harassment (AASHA), Women Action Women, Bedari Lok Sanjh Foundation, Rozan, Cavish Development Foundation etc.

At the closing ceremony of the event, Lok Virsa Executive Director Khalid Javaid appreciated the participations from the women and effective contribution made by the organizations.

Khalil Javaid highlighted that his organization is doing what it takes to promote the cultural heritage of Pakistan and promised the audience that efforts are consistently being made for the promotion of rural women in Pakistan. He revealed that his organization is developing a plan for the safety of the tangible and intangible heritage of Pakistan.

Speaking on the rural artisans and craftswomen, the executive went onto reveal the plans aiming to appreciate the working women and discussed their problems.

KP Minister for Women Development Dr Nafisa Shah, Balochistan Minister for Women Development Ms Ghazala Gola and Royal Norwegian Ambassador to Pakistan Ms Cecilie Landsverk paid tribute to the work from Lok Virsa, PODA and other institutions for organizing such a beautiful event in Islamabad.

Posted by Farasat Ali on Oct 18 2011. Filed under National. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry