The pandemic has shaken the world no doubt and due to this we have somewhere forgotten the struggles girls are facing every year, every day and in every corner of the world. October 11th has been declared as International Girl Child day by United Nations. Every year since 2011, this day is celebrated to promote girl’s empowerment and to give attention to the challenges girls face in every sphere. This year’s theme for International Girl Child Day is “My Voice, Our Equal future”.
To commemorate the day, Shespeaks Aambra Foundation organised a virtual event, a webinar with eminent speakers. The speakers of the event were Mr. Mahaveer Singhvi – Joint Secretary (CT) Ministry of External Affairs Government of India, Mr. Vipin Kumar – Joint Secretary Ministry of Education Government of India, Ms Shaina NC – BJP Spokesperson, Ms Abha Singh – Advocate Bombay High court, Former bureaucrat and Activist. The Program was hosted by Ms Vinita Bakshi – Author & Founder President, Aambra Foundation and Mr Sandeep Bhargava – CEO & Founder, Leap EdTech, Member of SheSpeaks Advisory Board. The Topic of the session Focused on Education, Equality and Empowerment of girls to mark the auspicious day of Girl Child.
The session started by Ms Vinita Bakshi with a heart touching video marking the journey of Shespeaks Aambra Foundation. She introduced the guest speakers and dragged everyone’s attention towards Girl’s poor condition in the country. She also added that our focus must be towards positive social change and most importantly women need to be educated.
Firstly, the guest speaker Ms Shaina was invited to address the event. She spoke about the gender inequalities and said that Equality is a reality when women are given same educational opportunity, same inheritance rights and women not to see as just vote bank. She added that women must support women and also there is a need to rethink on the dynamics of leadership. She marked that Empowerment comes with Education, equality and financial empowerment. And she ended her talk by motivating all to fight for each other, not with each other.
Second guest Speaker, Mr. Vipin Kumar addressed the audience. He threw light on what we have for girl child in New Education Policy. He marked that the main reasons for the deteriorating condition of girls and women are lack of sensitisation, lack of education for both girls and boys, lack of awareness in the society. He then discussed the highlights of New Education Policy for girl child and marked that this policy will be milestone for empowering girls. There is a special chapter in NEP on equitable and inclusive education with the mission “Education for all”. He ended up giving ways to curb the discrimination between girl child and boy child and added that we should respect all children irrespective of their gender, they should have equal access, equal opportunity and equal dignity.
After the Mr Vipin’s informative words, Ms Abha Singh addressed the attendees focusing on the gender gap in India. She mentioned that despite of the laws, child marriages are still happening in our country. She marked that gender gap is because of the discrimination in salary rates and inheritance rights of women. She added that due the social stigma, women don’t claim property. The biggest reason for gender gap is women not speaking for her rights, women sacrificing everything just because she is born women and the biggest fight is to change the mindset. She also spoke about the weak political representative of women as one of the reasons why India slides in gender gap. She added that empowerment will come with educational rights, equality and faith in yourself.
The session was continued by our last guest speaker, Mr Mahaveer Singhvi. He began his talk asking all to do self-introspection that we need to ask ourselves if we are giving girl child equal rights, equal opportunities and humanity. He spoke about the current situation of women in India and put forward various ways to improve this, like to spread more awareness about legal laws, organising more workshops to talk on these issues. He also added that we need to reach out to poor female population and rural areas. He appreciated this event and the work Aambra foundation is doing.
The event was concluded by Mr. Sandeep Bhargava who is a technocrat and member of SheSpeaks advisory Board. He put up all the questions raised by the participants of the event and one by one all of them were addressed by the guest speakers. The questions were very interesting. A question was raised by one of the participants that even after educating male child at home and sensitising them towards women, what is the reason we are still lacking in the level of sensitisation. Ms abha addressed the question explaining how children learn from what they see in their family. She also explained how stigma related to rape increases this crime. Some of the questions were on existance of double standard in the society, less opportunity for girls in hostels as compared to boys, etc. Suggestions were also made by the attendees. Overall it was very informative sesssion and all the points discussed in the session were worth knowing.