Mystic Masala: Empowering women through training

Empower women to bring that smile. (Pic credit: Wikipedia)

March 8th is International Women's Day. This year, with a new scheme, the women in the state of Karnataka will get something even more significant than flowers and chocolates.

E-Mahile is being launched to connect villages to the virtual vistas. Under this scheme, cyberkiosks will be set up in villages and will be solely run by rural women, by way of providing them a self-employment opportunity.

The Women Development Corporation (responsible for the scheme) has already launched a pilot project in 10 districts with almost 300 women already undergoing training.

Cyber Kiosks will serve to disseminate information on demand. Information will span weather data, agriculture produce marketing process, railway and bus ticketing, healthcare network and ambulance service information. Through this service, each woman employee is expected to earn around Rs 7000 per month.

Jai Bhavani Ma! (Pic from the web)

'Stree Sakti' or Woman Power is celebrated in India and Goddesses are placed on the top-most pedestal to be revered and honored. From being the kind and compassionate Mother to the powerful and graceful embodiment of Feminity, Durga , the spirit of Womanhood has been lauded in the Holy Hindu scriptures.

Pic taken from WordPress (Reference: Heather Mallick, columnist, Girls, Interrupted)

Yet, statistics reveals that the average girl child in India remains uneducated and impoverished. Over 150 million children working as bonded laborers. One out of every six girl child does not live to see her 15th birthday. Female infanticide is a terrible practice gaining prominence in rural areas.

Let's move over to war-torn Iraq.

Iraqi Women and children are constantly suffering from trauma and stress due to continuous shelling and bombing. In order to combat this, they are being administered steroids which have many side-effects. Apart from that change in their medical regime, their daily lives continue to be miserable and they often suffer from deep depression.

The Art of Living organization, under the leadership of Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar, has sent over a team of dedicated teachers to Iraq. Now our sisters from Iraq are being given ayurvedic medicine, and are being taught Pranayaam and meditation. In four days' time, it is said that they begin to return to normalcy with a smile lighting up their faces.

A similar program has also been initiated in Kosovo and Gujarat to see similar results.

After all, the old adage " "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime." holds good for the fairer sex too.