Why and How of women empowerment -preface for WE MEET

preface for the upcoming souvenir of the WE_MEET seminar
A just and progressive society is identified by participation of all categories of people who live in the society. Hence women, who constitute half of the society’s population, must have their participation in the progress of development. The attempt of “WE MEET” is towards such a participation as that alone will justify the nick-name ‘Shakti’ that has been adopted by the women wing of Vijnana Bharati.
It was to underline this role of women that the Maharashtra Unit of Shakti and College of Engineering Pune (An autonomous institutue of the Govt. of Maharashtra) had jointly organized a National Conference for Women ‘WE-MEET’ during 24-26th Sept. 2010.

It may be said that the Indian society never denied their rightful role to the women – they were always called GrihLakshmi and were allowed to manage the household while the men-folk attended to the work outside – a perfect division of labour, according to the ability and strong-point of each. So where is the “lack of women’s participation” and where is the need for a separate, purposeful seminar? Hence it needs to be emphasized that the concept of participation does not fulfill unless it is a participation in all walks of life with EASE. That ease, that natural hold and efficiency over work comes only when the women get the confidence that they can handle all types of work. That comes through practice, and also a theoretical understanding of the underlying concept of knowledge, skill-acquisition and efficiency. So it is not enough that women should have a managerial role on the home-front, but should also have a dynamic role in many more areas outside. They should be leaders, inventors, teachers, soldiers, researchers, entrepreneurs and managers in addition to their natural role as a mother and a partner and should be able to transit smoothly from one role to another.
The seminar “WE MEET” was an attempt to list out all those action-plans which an enlightened group of women should undertake towards fulfilling their social role in leading the women-folk for such an empowerment and participation. In this attempt we enlisted the support from dignitary women and men from all walks of life and had the participants of varied age-groups and a varied work-experience. It is a beginning of a process and we have miles and miles to go. So let us all undertake this journey in right earnest and work out plans for training women and providing them opportunity and encourage them for their own journeys to a life of work-efficiency and value-addition to Nation. Jay-Hind.