By Aarthy Madanagopal
Women-up Tamil Nadu was founded on the belief that action is more important than words when it comes to solving the long standing socio-economic gender equality issues. It is our vision and mission to empower women and girls in our home state of Tamil Nadu, and through our actions and accomplishments inspire Women-up movements in all the states across India. By forming powerful networks of women dedicated to a common cause, and by learning from each other and collaborating with each other, we believe that we can accelerate change. Our premise is that for every positive action there is a chain reaction that will unleash the latent power of women and girls to build a stronger and more sustainable Indian economy and society.
Women-up, Tamil Nadu was formed in February, 2023 with a group of 20 women who aspire to work for the community by supporting them in education, healthcare, social and economic empowerment. This cohort came together for the first time to participate in a roundtable hosted by Dr. Valli Arunachalam and organised by Apogee Research Forum.
This cohort of women leaders will form small working groups to focus on the three objectives that were identified during the first roundtable discussion held on February 24-25, 2023. The working groups will utilise their organisation resources, strengths and networks collectively and invest in the commitments that can be found in the later part in this document.
This diverse cohort has the bandwidth of information and capacity to undertake tasks as required for their commitments. The responsibilities taken up during this Roundtable although is voluntary, to ensure there is consistent effort made towards realising the goals, a metric system to assess and evaluate the impact of their work will be developed during the course of their commitment period.
The event was engineered to engage strong, committed, passionate, and aspiring women from diverse occupational backgrounds to steer a conversation around gender equality and how to convert it to a right, entitlement and opportunity for the gender and sexual minorities in India. The all-women roundtable conference brings in 20 eminent experts from diverse fields who represent art directors, academicians, entrepreneurs, scientists, journalists, social workers, policy makers and sport professionals into action. The discussions from the roundtable will be translated into actionable steps through ‘Working Groups’ setup by this cohort. The event culminates in drawing up a charter or a call-to-action document otherwise a ‘Womanifesto’ that will include the commitments and necessary action steps as agreed by the members of the different Working Groups. The Womanifesto will also include measurable implementation framework along with a brief road map to execute them.
(i) To actively promote and encourage more women owned businesses in Tamil Nadu with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion practices that enables them to compete in markets in general and specifically in STEAM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
(ii) To support marginalised communities and women from weaker sections of the society to fight for their social and economic rights. Through community outreach programs and creating awareness about their rights and entitlements, to empower them socially and economically.
(iii) To improve access to education and healthcare for women and girls by ensuring better delivery of services with the support of grassroots organisations and private sector that has the resources to build the social infrastructure.
You can read the Womenifesto 2023 by Women-Up Tamil Nadu here.
The writer is the Co-Founder of Apogee Research Forum.