MAKING CHANGE HAPPEN WITH VOICES OF OUR CORRESPONDENT

ASSIGNMENT 4 – MAKING CHANGE HAPPEN WITH VOICES OF OUR CORRESPONDENT
Like many other women all around the world, my life has been a long journey of pleasant as well as very sad and tragic moments, of successes and failures, a constant struggle in an egotistic and discriminatory society. In this backdrop, survival and achieving success is often a hard and difficult journey. .Many of us either drop out of this tough route or get smothered by social taboos and prejudices, or simply make painful compromises, however distressful and agonizing it might be. But those who struggle and withstand often find that there are rewarding moments for all the sacrifices that they undertake The lesson that I have learnt is that women should build on their strength and perseverance. They should never allow themselves to be subdued or suppressed. Women can overcome a lot of difficulties if they have faith in their own strength and resilience and are given the opportunity to be empowered.
It is my vision to bring my humble contribution wherever I can to support the cause of advancement of women be it in my professional capacity or through personal intervention or social contribution. I want to be able to bring my share, however, small it may be, in making women discover their own potentials and overcome their difficulties and in bringing recognition of their rights and contribution. It is my aim to establish a non-governmental organization to run capacity building programmes for self empowerment of women, developing their leadership skills and self protection in a social environment in order to ensure that tier rights are respected. This programme will also aim at creating strong networks of intergenerational partnerships, providing continuous peer learning and mentorship for young women in order to strengthen capacity .

This could include training in personal empowerment and skills to cope with discriminatory practices and in male dominated societies, a forum for discussion and exchange of views and a programme to ensure gender responsiveness of institutions. .Such a programme would be extremely relevant in assisting women to overcome poverty, to stand against discrimination in all its forms, to resist situations of subjugation, to seek redress in cases of violence and abuse and to access the world of work.
Voices of Our Correspondent will be useful in developing networks, learning from experiences and programmes of other colleagues , building our own capacity to run social and economic empowerment programmes. As an international network, it has the potential to create synergies and to disseminate information to us. This channel of communication is fast, efficient and result oriented. It can even provide opportunities for online learning and mentoring if such programmes are developed and posted on the site. It will greatly facilitate our task. Secondly we can also use this platform to post the success stories online. Such stories will provide inspiration to others and may serve to encourage the learners.
Voices of Our Correspondent can help us in designing and implementing innovative programs to improve women’s social, economic, and political opportunities and enhance women’s legal and human rights. It would facilitate in-country and regional networks, linkages between similar organizations. As a communication tool, it should illustrate the successes of women and how they have achieved gains as well as the obstacles and hurdles that have paved their way to success and how they overcame them.. Voices of Our Correspondent can really help us in making change happen in the lives of women.