Monday, January 13, 2020

Educating a girl, empowering a nation...

women

They say if you educate a man, you educate an individual. But if you educate a woman, you educate a nation. Dawood Global Foundation recently vocationally trained almost 200 more girls in ‘Communication, Innovation and Keys to Success’ at Indus University through their ‘Educate a Girl’ platform.

This programme has a vision to ensure every girl has access to equal education and is motivated to live an impactful life and is steadily working its way to educate 10,000 dynamic young women in Pakistan. To date, 3000 deserving girls have been educated through live trainings and one million girls online in multiple languages. This was as part of a partnership with Facebook’s internet.org foundation and with support by the World Bank.

The initiative focused in its early days on media trainings, and then soon expanded to include entrepreneurship, leadership, negotiation, mental health, self-discipline and e-commerce. In its Qayummabad (Karachi) trainings, ‘Educate a Girl’ taught the students how to make e-commerce websites over 6 weeks and the winner of best website - one that sold coloured henna online - was funded 5000 USD by Amazon.com in hosting credits. Several alumni have become news anchors and gone on to win top journalism awards nationally and in a handful of cases been recognised globally.

For this most recent training, there were 11 resources including 4 global speakers English Literature professor (retired) Dr Ishrat Lindblad (Stockholm, Sweden), virtual reality expert Ahmed Hamid (New York, USA), GlobalGiving communications specialist Soophia Ansari (Washington DC, USA) and the Honourable Consul General of Malaysia Khairul Nazran.

Other trainings included those conducted by Sanki King, Ambreen Saleh, Imran Rana, Yasmin Dadabhoy, Moneeza Butt, Sayeda Habib and Ladiesfund President Tara Uzra Dawood. These focused on communication skills, use of innovation in the workspace and job interviewing tips and guidelines.

Dr. Lindbladm focused on choosing your words wisely and explained to the students how their entire career paths could evolve differently, simply by taking their choice of language seriously. Moreover, she offered her support to the programme in the future as well.

Mr Khairul Nazran spoke about bilateral relations and cultural, educational and trade opportunities between Pakistan and Malaysia. The foundation has already sent eight girls to study in Germany, and one to each of UK, Turkey, China, and Switzerland. The foundation is also working to send girls to France and hopefully Malaysia soon.

The event drew engagement from several members of the community, many of whom are donors or resources including Jawaid Haider, Yasmin Dadabhoy, Moneeza Butt, Afzaal Adhia, Amna Zia among others. Famed fashion designer Deepak Perwani has personally donated 25 scholarships to the cause and has been a trainer in the past. He is currently leading a fundraising drive of his limited edition handbags to help educate more girls.

- You! desk



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