Watch N Mahalakshmi, Editor of Outlook Business in conversation with our eminent women panelists, Shaheen Mistri, founder and CEO of Akansha Foundation and Teach for India, Vijay Lakshmi Das, Friends of Womens World Banking, Rukshmani Kumari, founder of Star Foundation and Sunita Krishnan, co founder of Prajwala as they talk and discuss about what it means to defy the power structures and be the next changemakers.
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#BeingChangemakers #WomenEmpowerment #Business #OutlookBusiness #OutlookMagazine #OutlookGroup
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Karl Marx, philosopher and socio-economist, said that social progress can be measured
00:06 by the social status of women.
00:10 Today countries with more gender equality have more economic growth, companies with
00:15 more women leaders are growing faster, and of course peace agreements that include women
00:22 are more durable.
00:24 Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence is absolutely clear that in the social and the political
00:30 sphere women have bravely imagined a better world.
00:35 They fiercely initiated and steered social progress.
00:39 The question really is, how did they start?
00:43 How did they keep the dream alive?
00:45 And most importantly, what keeps them going?
00:49 This is our next conversation.
00:51 May I please call on stage Outlook Business Editor N. Mahalakshmi, moderator of this session.
01:05 And ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for four women who have not
01:10 let power structures intimidate them.
01:13 First up, Shaheen Mistry, founder and CEO, Akanksha Foundation, Teach for India.
01:22 We're also joined by Vijaya Lakshmi Das, Friends of Women's World Banking, India.
01:31 Keep the claps coming as I welcome on stage Rukshmani Kumari, founder, Star Foundation
01:37 and member of the royal family of Chomu, Rajasthan.
01:43 And Sunita Krishnan, co-founder, Rajwala.
01:50 Ms. Mahalakshmi, over to you.
02:00 Thank you.
02:01 This is such an honor and privilege to be moderating this discussion with four absolutely
02:11 wonderful, wonderful women, wonderful human beings who have committed their lives to making
02:21 change in an area that they have chosen.
02:27 I'm not even going to attempt to describe the kind of work that they have put in.
02:34 You might as well hear it from the horse's mouth because whatever I may say is going
02:41 to be not enough to bring out what they are doing and how they are steering towards a
02:58 more equal society.
03:00 Shaheen, let me start with you.
03:03 For the first eighteen years of your life, you were not even in India.
03:07 I read that you went around thirteen countries and at eighteen you came to India.
03:15 How did you even get sensitized to this problem of education, the need gap in education amongst
03:25 slum dwellers which is what got you started in this space?
03:29 Just tell us about what was that trigger, what was the inspiration, what was the starting
03:34 point?
03:35 So, I think growing up abroad, we would come back and visit grandparents in India and I
03:41 think all of you have probably had this experience where you fly back into India and I'm from
03:48 Mumbai and when you fly back into Mumbai, you see disparity in a way that you can't
03:56 look away.
03:58 So I would go back and forth between these two lives and that combined with from a very
04:04 early age at twelve, I started volunteering and realized that I just loved kids and more
04:11 than kids, I love the idea that opportunity could really enable each and every child to
04:19 be who he or she was destined to be.
04:22 So I think those forces came together and I just walked into a community at eighteen,
04:27 dropped out of university in the US, sat down and started teaching and my journey just started
04:33 from there.
04:34 Take us through your journey.
04:36 So it's very simple, it was no big idea at all.
04:42 I felt I had had a great education and I loved being with kids and so I started teaching
04:48 myself.
04:49 I didn't know the first thing about teaching when I started but took small little steps,
04:54 believed a lot that we had everything in this country that we needed to educate our children,
05:01 we just needed to have more will and we needed to work more together.
05:06 So I started at eighteen a little college project called Akanksha that grew into a program
05:13 that today runs schools for some of the poorest children, trying to give them the most excellent
05:20 education that we can possibly give them and then seventeen years after doing that, I realized
05:26 that we were still touching so few children and I saw the immense potential of education
05:33 and so I started a second organization called Teach for India, which is trying to build
05:38 a movement of people around the country who will not stop until the last child in India
05:47 is actually educated.
05:48 So long, long, long journey ahead but that's a little bit of my journey.
05:54 Ma'am, you were in, you were doing your dissertation in Madras College when you really found this
06:04 need gap in microfinance and I don't think it was called microfinance at that time.
06:10 They were just money lenders who were, you know, lending money at exorbitant rates and
06:15 they were needy people and I don't think that was a buzz word at that time at all and decades
06:23 ago.
06:24 So what gave you that, of course the insight was clear that, you know, poor people did
06:30 not have access to credit but were you able to envision what you wanted to do, how to
06:35 take it forward, how to scale it up?
06:38 What was clear to you then, what got you started and how did you build it?
06:43 I didn't know how you got the information about my dissertation.
06:48 I did it in, during my MA days in Pondicherry.
06:52 So dissertation was in the village and then rural credit.
06:55 I realized that the rural population borrows at 360% or something like that.
07:04 So it works out to be like that and then how they manage their lives and then they get
07:11 into the cycle of poverty and then they cannot come out.
07:14 So I was just looking for an opportunity to work.
07:18 It came in Ila but called me and then can you work with women but low income household
07:24 women.
07:26 So when I started there were lots of things happening in India because there are lots
07:31 of successful cooperatives for rural women and then also SCG movement was picking up
07:37 and microfinance.
07:40 Many development organizations were involved in microfinance.
07:44 So we thought that instead of directly working with the poor, it is important to encourage
07:51 and strengthen the institutions that are providing the services.
07:54 That way we can reach out to a larger number of women in the country.
07:58 So that is how FWW, Friends of Women in World Banking was known as first lender for almost
08:04 all the microfinance institutions in the country.
08:07 So we were at one point of time we were working with 200 organizations across 17 states.
08:13 But the question was that financial inclusion is a very tough job to work because I must
08:21 have gone to lots of, I must have met lots of RBI governors and then CMDs of banks and
08:28 all but convincing them to set aside a huge fund for the poor was quite difficult.
08:36 And they were thrilled in giving it to your intermediary but not to the poor directly.
08:40 So it was, it is still a challenge.
08:43 So we work with farmer producer companies across the country.
08:47 They have to become a company because legally there is no other form available.
08:51 Otherwise people would like to organize cooperatives.
08:55 So in that if you really see the women spend 85% of their time in agriculture operations
09:02 but she doesn't own the land.
09:05 So because she doesn't own the land she is not eligible to get any sources of credit
09:11 or any of those marketing facilities and all.
09:14 So we thought that maybe we will work through the collectives.
09:17 So as an entrepreneur whether I am eligible to this forum or not but institution wise
09:25 we believe in collectivization of the poor to have an access to resources and also to
09:32 the rights.
09:33 So that is what we are working maybe in microfinance we have reached out to, directly reached out
09:38 to more than 15 million women over the years.
09:42 And then now we are working with about 75 small and marginal farmer collectors plus
09:48 we create entrepreneurs among the women.
09:52 So we don't directly, I don't know how to make money but I can teach people how to make
09:57 money.
09:58 So the entrepreneurs program is every year we generate a training program.
10:05 So we hand hold women, particularly low income household women and help them to become entrepreneurs
10:11 in rural areas as well as in urban areas.
10:13 So every year we train about 10,000 women and then also we set up a separate fund because
10:20 in spite of training women cannot get access to resources.
10:25 So it is important for us to create a fund.
10:27 I am still struggling to make a big fund available to the women entrepreneurs but inspiring stories
10:35 you can hear from them because they struggle, they have poverty and then they have lots
10:40 of other responsibility but still they are becoming successful entrepreneurs is quite
10:45 inspiring for people like us with so much of qualification and I was lucky to get lots
10:52 of education and all but without education, without access to resources, the way they
10:59 come up is very good.
11:00 I think they are the hope for India too.
11:03 Absolutely.
11:04 If it is recognized.
11:05 Absolutely.
11:06 Ma'am before we move on to the next speaker, I just want you to elaborate on the first
11:12 five years of your journey.
11:14 When you got started you decided that this is what you want to do.
11:19 What did you do in the first five years?
11:21 Because that part is a real blank.
11:22 I tried to look up but I couldn't.
11:23 I am an economist by training so I have done all those things but first I have to demystify
11:29 myself.
11:30 First of all I have to realize that the women knew more.
11:35 I keep on saying women because we work with women so we don't work with anyone else.
11:39 So we felt that in spite of the status at which they are, they understand the money
11:46 economy very well and they know what is the difference between different interest rates
11:51 and they know about investment.
11:53 Only thing is they don't know.
11:55 So first thing we have done is how to stop ourselves from talking the language we were
12:02 taught in colleges.
12:04 So demystifying became very difficult for us to tell the people.
12:09 But after sometime it was very comfortable because you realize the strength of the other
12:14 side.
12:15 So based on that you work it out.
12:18 And this work needs passion.
12:22 You need less money but passion.
12:24 I must have spent about 20 to 30 days in a month in the field.
12:29 So I had my children and then they were left out and then Ritu was talking about why it
12:37 is important to become economically empowered women.
12:40 That is what we believe as an institution.
12:44 It was very difficult to raise money and then convince the bankers to work for poor and
12:49 all those things.
12:51 But the qualification which we had acquired because if we know SEWA and SEWA related organization,
13:00 most of us are highly qualified people who decided to work in the self-employed sector.
13:07 Because of that all of us used to go and then do policy level changes and then accessing
13:13 money from the banks and all which became very easy.
13:16 But it was a struggle from the family side because you are hardly seen by the family
13:22 and the children grew up.
13:24 Now there is no problem on their own.
13:26 But raising resources was very tough.
13:31 And in India you compete with the government all the time.
13:34 So because it's not like other countries.
13:37 Africa I get jealous of African counterparts who can grow faster.
13:41 In India there are lots of programs, lots of schemes by the government which actually
13:50 work as a deterrent to growth.
13:54 So we have to struggle and then empower people like that.
13:58 Your journey, I mean you are working in a similar area, essentially trying to empower
14:06 women, working around their livelihoods.
14:10 And now you are also, apart from the women community, you are also looking at how to
14:15 market those enterprises.
14:16 Where did your journey really start and how has it been so far?
14:21 Thank you so much for a lovely question.
14:24 I just wanted to share a bit about my life.
14:29 I am a forgery's wife.
14:31 I mean my husband passed away in 2011 in Kashmir.
14:35 So it's definitely a very difficult day for me also today seeing all around.
14:41 But when he passed away, we started a foundation called Star Foundation.
14:49 And where the name Star Foundation comes from is, if you have seen a uniform, they have
14:57 stars, you know.
14:58 And my son used to, I have a 13-year-old son now.
15:02 And he used to call his father Star and there the Star Foundation, the NGO which I have
15:10 started since last few years.
15:12 And we've started working in the rural Rajasthan and we work for women and children.
15:20 It has been really challenging, you know, coming from a royal family and a Rajput family,
15:26 a very restricted kind of a family and after the husband passes away, it's, you all know
15:34 how, what kind of a situation a widow has and what she has to go through and how you
15:40 stand up in that kind of a situation.
15:43 And my family was fantastic.
15:46 I had a great family support.
15:48 But if you have all known about Rajasthan, it's definitely very, very strict if you say.
15:55 But how I came across and what challenges I had to go through is very, very difficult.
16:04 And 13 days of when my husband passed away, I was in the office.
16:09 So I think when problems come in your life, I think you don't run away but face it.
16:16 That's the most important thing.
16:18 Every woman, I think, women sitting here, I think I would like to say that face it,
16:25 you know.
16:26 Problems can, the way she said that you have to empower yourself, you have to work.
16:32 It's very important.
16:33 Humein nahi pata ki kal kya hone wala hai.
16:36 You can have a divorce, how she said, you can have a, your husband can pass, anything.
16:43 So it's very important to empower yourself and stand up.
16:48 So let's, I mean, that's the story, a little bit of story.
16:52 I can just go on and on from my childhood and a lot to say, but I think we are on a
16:58 time scale also.
17:01 But so with Star Foundation, this is how we started.
17:05 We really didn't want it to be named as Major Aditya Singh Foundation or something.
17:09 I thought if ever I'm not there in this world, I can pass this foundation to anybody.
17:16 I mean, anybody can work.
17:18 Any foundation should have that kind of a vision.
17:20 Is that what I started?
17:22 So we started with the Star Shoe Project initially to start with smaller children.
17:28 That just not giving away shoe was our idea.
17:31 Our idea was to get them to school, to teach them hygiene.
17:36 So we started Star Foundation, I mean, the Star Shoe Project.
17:42 We started Star Vriksha Bhyan, telling children to adopt plantation.
17:47 We started Star Mahila Rozgar programs, where we have…
17:51 Chote chote gaon mein hamare silai kendra hain, chote chote kaam karte hain.
17:56 Par mujhe lagta hai, hame society mein dekhna hai, ki kya zaruri hai aur wohi karya karna
18:03 hai.
18:04 Matlab, that is what I have started doing it.
18:07 We cannot change the whole world.
18:09 We start with one.
18:10 I have started it, I think you can all join in and I suppose the change is definitely
18:17 going to happen.
18:18 It's… that's how… that is what a little bit story about Star Foundation, how we've
18:25 started.
18:26 Yes, yes.
18:27 Moderator (Sunita Venkatesh): Sunita, you have the most heart-wrenching story or should
18:32 I say heart-wrenching or numbing, numbing story?
18:35 Just take us back.
18:36 Sunita Venkatesh (Sharon S. Venkatesh): I wouldn't think so.
18:39 No.
18:40 I have the most transformational story because being…
18:51 I am not even allowing you to complete your question.
18:55 Being gang-raped at the age of fifteen by eight men for me was a transformational moment
19:02 because I was able to see the world differently.
19:07 I was able to understand exclusion differently.
19:10 I was able to experience what stigma means, what pain means, what anguish means and what
19:20 inequality means in actual sense.
19:23 So for me it was, if not for that incident, I would not be doing what I am doing today.
19:28 And the drive, the anger, the motivation, the commitment, the passion all comes from
19:34 that incident.
19:36 And so it's largely about anything that happens in your life, how you want to see
19:41 it.
19:42 It's a choice that you have to make.
19:44 If you make a choice to look at it as heart-wrenching and painful, then you want to be a victim.
19:52 And I am not a victim, I am a survivor.
19:55 And I not only survived that incident but I want to believe that…
20:02 I want to believe that every child and every girl that we have rescued from sex trafficking
20:09 or sex crime, we are imbibing that sense of it is not you who is at fault.
20:17 It is…
20:18 It's somebody has faulted you and therefore you are a survivor and you have the power
20:23 to come out of it.
20:24 You don't even need anybody else around you to help you.
20:27 You are so strong within you and that's why I don't like to be connected to any
20:33 heart-wrenching, you know, epitaphs around my name.
20:37 Shobhana Rao: My apologies.
20:41 Can you take us through this transformational journey?
20:44 You know, was it one point where you decided that things had to change not only for you
20:50 but for a lot of other people?
20:54 Or was it something that shaped over a period of time?
21:01 Shobhana Rao: Much before I got gang-raped, I was involved in development work.
21:08 It started at the age of eight.
21:11 And by the age of twelve, I was a hardcore activist.
21:16 I had a school running for disadvantaged children and it was…
21:21 Shobhana Rao: At fifteen?
21:22 Shobhana Rao: At the age of twelve.
21:23 At the age of fifteen, I was working in a village, working with Dalit women and children,
21:32 providing near literacy campaign for them and that's where I was taught a lesson
21:37 in the village by people who felt that I am kind of putting the wrong ideas in the minds
21:42 of young girls.
21:44 And I don't think they had anything…
21:45 Shobhana Rao: This was in Hyderabad?
21:46 I mean, where was it?
21:47 Shobhana Rao: No, in Karnataka.
21:48 Shobhana Rao: Karnataka.
21:49 Shobhana Rao: In Karnataka.
21:50 So, when that night happened, what remained with me is not what happened, what the eight
22:00 men did to me.
22:01 I don't even remember their faces actually.
22:03 But what remained with me is what happened afterwards.
22:06 The way people around me treated me and the way my family kind of dealt with me and one
22:13 of the first kind of messages I was getting is that I have done some crime, that I have
22:20 to be responsible for what happened to me.
22:22 So the questions were, "Why did you go there?"
22:25 Questions to my parents was giving her too much of freedom because by this time I was
22:29 like doing so much of social work and so everybody blamed my parents for all that happened to
22:34 me.
22:35 That victimizing a victim for no fault is the… is the triggering point in my life,
22:42 you know.
22:43 That anger is what started then.
22:46 Luckily, I think my life is a providence, so I didn't require a mentor or somebody
22:52 inspiring me.
22:53 I inspired myself and that's when I took a decision that the rest of my life, every
23:00 breath I will commit to fighting sex crime and over a little time I also came to the
23:07 conclusion that one of the worst forms of sex crime is sex slavery.
23:11 Sorry, worst forms of sex crime is…
23:13 Sex crime is sex slavery.
23:15 We kind of, you know, call it as a necessary evil.
23:19 We call prostitution as a necessary evil.
23:23 We think that it is okay that our men have libidos which is like, you know, unmeasurable
23:29 and therefore some child, some girl, some woman has to be there, you know, to cater
23:35 to that and therefore it is like a necessity.
23:38 I want to break that and that's how the idea of Prachula began and at the age of twenty
23:44 I started Prachula.
23:46 It's been few decades now.
23:49 We've rescued more than twenty-one thousand women and children out of prostitution (Applause)
23:56 and I think one of the things that we've been able to do is able to demonstrate to
24:02 the world that it is possible to change.
24:06 You know, it is… you don't need to, you know, kind of justify and legitimize something
24:11 and say this is necessary, we can't do anything about it.
24:14 So just let us live with it.
24:16 You don't need to live with it.
24:17 If you strategize correctly, you can break that cycle and the small initiative that we
24:23 have made in Prachula is kind of a small example, a micro example of possibility that you don't
24:30 need to tolerate sexual exploitation and you don't need to tolerate commercial sexual
24:35 exploitation of women and children and Mahalakshmi, you need to also understand when we are talking
24:41 about human beings and sexual exploitation, we are talking about three-year-olds and four-year-olds
24:46 and five-year-olds.
24:48 So you know, when you start legitimizing, when you start endosing and you start calling
24:52 it, you know, necessary, evil and all things, you don't know what you are actually endosing
24:58 because maybe twenty years back you see a twenty-year-old girl, just few months back
25:03 the youngest child that we have rescued is two-and-a-half years old from a brothel and
25:08 she was already used for pornography.
25:11 So we need to reflect what we speak, what we endose and the positions we take and Prachula
25:19 properly is a demonstration that we don't need to endure everything.
25:23 Moderator (Anu Dutta): Sure.
25:24 How large is your organization right now?
25:27 What is the strength and is it all… what is the organization like right now?
25:34 Dr. Anuradha Gopinath: The organization is involved in several things.
25:37 We have a 360 degrees approach in working on the issue of sex trafficking and sex crimes.
25:43 At one end we provide education as a way to prevent children whose mothers are in prostitution
25:53 so that there is a second generation prevention and the cycle can be broken there, there is
25:58 the intergenerational prevention can be done.
26:00 We also engage in the communities, we go to the schools, colleges, villages and all to
26:05 sensitize and awaken the communities about the dangers of being trafficked.
26:10 But I think our claim to fame is assisting the police in rescue work.
26:15 We actually go with the police to rescue girls out of the brothels and we have a pan-India
26:21 space, we have rescued girls from all over the country.
26:25 But I think while rescue is a very James Bond kind of activity, it's like one day or two
26:32 day or maybe large ten days' work, the larger work is rehabilitation which takes long time.
26:38 We are talking about human beings who have been raped forty times, fifty times a day
26:43 for weeks together, months together, years together till some joker like me decides,
26:48 "Okay, we got the information and now we will rescue them."
26:51 We are sitting here and talking, you have GB road just, you know, twenty kilometers
26:56 from here next to Kamla market police station where close to thirty percent of the girls
27:01 there are minors, you know.
27:03 So we are talking about every day that person getting sexually exploited by hundreds of
27:09 men.
27:10 So, you know, restoring hope in their lives, making them believe that there is an alternate
27:15 life possible and making them believe that dignity is a possibility is a huge challenge,
27:23 especially when the person does not believe in it.
27:27 So the kind of persons that we rescue is people who are hostile to us, aggressive towards
27:33 us so much so that I have even a twelve year old telling me on my face, "I do it on my
27:38 own, what is your problem?
27:40 I do business because I like it."
27:43 So from that point to making her believe that she is a victim of exploitation and making
27:48 her believe that she can survive it.
27:49 So what does that conversation really, I mean what kind of a conversation do you really
27:53 have to translate them to…
27:55 Oh, it's a big challenging conversation meaning, you know, if I have to describe a
28:01 rescue, what I can remember of any rescue is chappals on my face and abusers on my face.
28:09 So when you pull that person out, that is what you are engaging with, a very hostile
28:15 person who is self-harming, who wants to hurt themselves, who want to run away from your
28:19 shelter and looks at you as an abuser and not as a savior and like we are with this
28:26 hilo, no, that we are all coming to do some help for you and here is somebody who is saying
28:30 that, "I don't need your help, get out, you know, and I don't even want to stay in
28:33 your home, your home is a prison, you know."
28:36 So making her believe is not an overnight thing, it's not like, aise chhu mantar mein nahi
28:41 hota hai, it requires a lot of trauma care, counseling and lot of psychosocial interventions
28:47 and putting her in education or livelihood training is another challenge.
28:53 Today we have our children doing medicine, we are doing, children are doing pharmacy,
28:58 law, meaning, but that didn't happen overnight, it took years for us to reach there.
29:04 Of course, social reintegration is a larger challenge.
29:07 Right now we are all busy getting ready, next week six of our girls are getting married,
29:12 so that's like one big event in our home family.
29:17 We have a full-time staff of around two hundred and sixty-five, full-time staff, fifty percent
29:24 of them are survivors of trafficking themselves.
29:27 That's our strength and perhaps one of the only few volunteers in the organization.
29:32 Shreya Shaheen, you know this, essentially getting into this social space is really about
29:40 personal passion, I mean it's driven by very strong level of commitment towards a certain
29:46 cause because you associate with it.
29:48 My question is, as you grow, initial drive is really individual passion, as the organization
29:55 grows, how do you really scale it up effectively?
29:58 Yeah, I mean, firstly my mind is just with Sunita.
30:05 Right now I've had the real honor and privilege of seeing a little bit of her work.
30:10 I was on GB Road yesterday trying to see how we can support a young entrepreneur working
30:16 there as well.
30:17 And yeah, I just feel incredibly honored to be on this panel, but Sunita to be with you
30:22 and the courage, the courage and the love.
30:26 She didn't mention the number of times she's had attacks on her own life and it's just,
30:33 it's very rare to be in a space with a human being of that much moral fiber, so thank you
30:39 for the inspiration.
30:43 I think for me, scale has just been about thinking about how we can be a multiplier
30:48 when I see the size of the opportunity with education.
30:54 We're talking about 320 million children in the country who deserve an excellent education.
31:01 I just think about how can we get more and more people to care about that problem.
31:08 And so our Teach for India model is just trying to say, can we get people who have never thought
31:15 about working in education and specifically for kids who need it the most to be passionate
31:21 enough to go out there and do that.
31:24 And so over the years, the beautiful thing about my work is it's just the work of creating
31:31 more and more leaders who feel passionately about changing kids' lives.
31:36 I was this morning in a small school in Haryana where we walked in 900 children and I wanted
31:44 to break down and cry seeing the state of this school, but the other side of the truth
31:50 is the fact that we have alumni in that school now who are working to activate the community
31:56 and specifically the school management committee to change that school.
32:03 And so that's really, I think, how we've thought about scale, that how do we get more and more
32:08 people to care, to be equipped, to understand what it means to really be on the ground,
32:15 and then to learn how to work together so that they can have greater impact.
32:22 Time's up.
32:23 That's really unfortunate that the time is up and such an interesting, touching, inspiring
32:31 discussion.
32:32 But just one quick minute to just say what would be your advice to somebody who wants
32:39 to work in the social space?
32:41 There are lots of work in social spaces, huge.
32:47 There is volunteerism and then you take social issues.
32:52 And for us, my organization works on financial services to women.
32:58 So once you have selected which area you want to work, then you have to equip yourself to
33:05 do it further.
33:06 You know, like the question you asked, like when we started it, it was volunteerism.
33:12 Not anymore.
33:13 So you want actually professionally qualified people coming more into the sector.
33:18 Definitely now I use lots of company secretaries, chartered accountants and all.
33:22 They are not going to come very cheap for you.
33:24 So it's important for you to also increase the kind of resources available to you to
33:32 make use of those talents.
33:34 But my problem is we like women to come.
33:38 So and then that is where the challenge is.
33:41 Women have lots of problem and then they have, I don't say it is a problem, it is a kind
33:47 of a dual role which she has to play.
33:49 So family is important and then career is important.
33:54 So retaining the women in the sector is quite a challenge, particularly for us.
34:01 That is one.
34:02 But I get lots of women.
34:03 So I have said that three years, four years, if you give, it's fine.
34:07 Then you can go and then you get me someone else.
34:10 So it is important.
34:11 More and more women should come.
34:13 Like I actually take classes for women in the banking sector.
34:18 Oh my God.
34:20 The courses when we do, they start crying because they are not able to get the promotion
34:26 because they have to sacrifice the promotions and because it comes with transfers and all.
34:32 So the balancing act is something that it is there at the low level, low income level
34:38 as well as the higher income level.
34:42 So how to work it out?
34:44 And people are not like Rithu's comfortable where you can expect your parents and grandparents
34:50 to take care of the children.
34:51 So their support system is crumbling day by day.
34:54 So it becomes very difficult to retain women.
34:57 But as an institution that we insist on having women, so I think it will…
35:03 With the challenge, working is much more interesting because the country throws up lots of problem
35:10 now and then.
35:11 So we have to work it out.
35:13 But financial services, you need highly qualified people.
35:16 Shaheen, one message to women wanting to work in the social space.
35:20 I think mine is just take the first step or if you're brave like one of my co-panelists,
35:25 take the first leap and do it with a lot of love.
35:30 I wish I could take you to this moment yesterday on GB Road where I went to see a school and
35:35 these were children of commercial sex workers.
35:38 And when we entered the school, they were lining up to hug us so tightly and they were
35:44 so excited and so open.
35:49 And I think that's what this work has been for me.
35:51 I feel so blessed to have been the recipient of just so much love.
35:55 It's just that first step or that first leap.
35:59 How about you, Lakshmani?
36:03 I have this message that I've seen around women not supporting the women.
36:08 And I think this is the best platform where I could speak that please support women.
36:13 Because it's very, very important.
36:16 I've seen why men supporting men.
36:19 I've seen they have their own gender which they are supporting.
36:24 So to all the women here, I suppose if you support your gender, I think we have won half
36:31 the war.
36:32 So that is very important.
36:38 Your sister or your bhabhi, start with home.
36:41 Then reach office.
36:42 Because we have to do this.
36:43 We are talking about women empowerment.
36:44 So let's start doing it today.
36:45 We will help each other.
36:46 I think the road is successful.
36:47 We will make it happen.
36:48 I think we are able to do it.
36:49 Thank you so much.
36:50 It's been wonderful.
36:51 Thank you, Jaylakshmi.
36:52 I think I'm going to be a part of this.
36:53 I'm going to be a part of this.
36:54 I'm going to be a part of this.
36:55 I'm going to be a part of this.
36:56 I'm going to be a part of this.
36:57 I'm going to be a part of this.
36:58 I'm going to be a part of this.
36:59 I'm going to be a part of this.
37:00 I'm going to be a part of this.
37:01 I'm going to be a part of this.
37:02 I'm going to be a part of this.
37:21 If you believe in a safe world for women and children, please don't invest in women and
37:26 children.
37:28 Please invest in men and boys.
37:34 Please invest in bringing up your sons properly.
37:37 If the attitude of men changes, it will be a better, safe world for all of us.
37:48 Thank you so much, ladies.
37:50 I'm absolutely humbled.
37:52 And Sunita, really sorry for the wrong use of adjectives.
37:57 I hope you guys enjoyed the discussion and are suitably inspired to take this forward.
38:04 Thank you.
38:05 Thank you so much.
38:14 Thank you so much for sharing those highly inspiring stories.
38:17 I'd now like to invite on stage Outlook Business WOW 2017 awardee and CEO, PM Relocations,
38:25 Akanksha Bhargava to please join me on stage to present our panelists with a token of our
38:30 appreciation.
38:31 Ladies and gentlemen, can we hear it once again for our power panel?
38:48 That's what I call them.
39:14 And of course, now that I have one more power woman with me on stage, Akanksha ma'am, I'm
39:36 going to request you to quickly share with us your WOW experience.
39:40 Can we have a hand mic, please?
39:42 Thank you.
39:43 Hi, good evening, everyone.
39:44 I think we are still absorbing what we just heard.
39:48 And I think it was so overwhelming and so lovely to hear from all of you.
39:53 You know, I'm I think I'm one of the youngest here.
39:55 So I think it's so important to hear these inspirational stories from people like you
40:00 so that we start changing our life right from, you know, right now.
40:05 I am obviously not in the social sector.
40:08 But yeah, I'm definitely trying my best at my workplace, at my home to empower women.
40:15 I run a relocation company.
40:16 So I shift people, I shift homes, I shift families across the world.
40:21 It's obviously it's not a glamorous industry and people don't really associate women to
40:25 it.
40:26 And I have a lot of packers that work with me, you know, you know, and I believe that
40:29 their families are my responsibility.
40:32 So I make sure that, you know, whoever is associated with my office, the blue collar
40:38 staff, their children are not going to live the same life as their parents are living.
40:43 So I'm trying to make sure that they make sure that their daughters go to school, their
40:47 children go to school, their boys go to school, and they don't really make them what they
40:51 do in their life.
40:53 So yeah, I am really thankful for to Outlook to have people like them and us here so that
41:01 we can talk, exchange ideas.
41:03 And I think I really go back with the message that women should support each other.
41:07 And I hope that with my little contribution to the industry, where I am, I have about
41:14 500 people who work with me, I can make a little difference.
41:17 And I have more stories to share later.
41:19 Thank you so much.
41:20 Thank you.
41:21 Thank you so much.
41:22 Thank you.
41:27 Thank you very much once again to our panel.
41:29 Thank you so much.
41:32 Thank you.
41:33 Thank you.
41:34 Thank you.
41:34 Thank you.
41:36 Thank you.