The National Commission for Women (NCW) organised a one-day conclave on ‘CSR for HER – Driving Women’s Empowerment’ in association with Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini (RMP) on January 17 at the latter’s Knowledge Excellence Centre (KEC) at Uttan.
The conclave discussed ways to improve funding for women empowerment and how NGOs and corporate houses can bridge gaps in funding. The meeting fostered dialogue among stakeholders to identify challenges and explore collaborative solutions.
The opening session that sought to set the vision for CSR-driven holistic women empowerment saw leadership from the government and civil society express their views.
Vijaya Rahatkar, chairperson, National Commission for Women, said, “NCW’s most important objective is to ensure that women get respect and are able to lead a good life. For this, we conduct research, create awareness, provide recommendations and training, and ensure capacity building.
Today’s conclave looks into the problems faced by CSR departments and NGOs in taking this agenda forward. NCW and RMP will continue to work in many more such areas with support from all stakeholders.” Rahatkar further added that there is a need to ensure peace within the family and that our family system remains in place, while also providing support to widows, working women with kids or infants and those that had been to jail, and single mothers.Highlighting the importance of such discussions, Dr. Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, vice president, RMP, said, “This event is actually for ‘CSR through Her for Us’ as it will help all of us.
The honorable Prime Minister envisions women-led development rather than mere women empowerment as women are at the vanguard of society. We should remember that while giving leadership to women, the support systems should also be equally good to bring a change.” Dr. Jayant Kulkarni, executive director, RMP, spoke about RMP’s activities in the area of capacity building.Representing the corporate sector were 31 CSR heads from 28 corporates such as Capgemini Technologies, Reliance Industries, Mahindra, Tata Group, Coal India, Bharat Petroleum and Indian Oil.
Representatives from nine NGOs and five educational institutes also participated in the event. All of them provided brief introduction about their work. Dr Shivani Dey, deputy secretary, NCW presented ideas that have the potential to make a big impact through CSR investments via scalable models for women empowerment.
Subsequent sessions explored innovative partnerships between NCW and corporates by exploring synergies to direct CSR funds towards deserving women empowerment initiatives. The last part of the session showcased success stories jointly scripted by NGOs and CSR teams.
This included activities of Savitribai Phule Mahila Ekatma Samaj Mandal, Maharashtra; Bhagini Nivedita Pratishthan, Maharashtra; Seva Bharati, Telangana; and Navsrishti Foundation, Uttar Pradesh.
