KARACHI: A group of Karachi women spent Wednesday afternoon listening to stories of women making a difference across the world, and planning a festival to celebrate themselves.
British Council of Pakistan has collaborated with Southbank Centre to host Women of the World (WOW) festival in the port city this year. To help plan this festival, the council held a Think-in session for women from various professions and walks of life to share their experiences and design a festival that celebrates the city’s better half.
Apart from female entrepreneurs, social workers, athletes and journalists, the event hosted guests from other countries in South Asia. Bangladesh Alliance for Women Leadership executive director Nasim Firdaus graced the occasion along with Nepal’s former parliamentarian Sapana Pradhan Malla and Afghanistan’s filmmaker Dr Sahraa Karimi. Moreover, teacher-trainer Bishaka Sen from Kolkata and theatre director Ruwanthie de Chickera from Sri Lanka also participated via Skype.
WOW
founder Jude Kelly CBE, who is the artistic director at Southbank
Centre, shared how the festival came about. “I founded WOW to provide
time, space and permission for women and girls from across the globe to
share the common aims and challenges of gender equality,” she said. “WOW
Karachi is a powerful addition to this international movement, which
now includes five continents, over a million women and girls, and
hundreds of partners.”
Kelly added that, “WOW Karachi promises to
be a spirited and far reaching celebration of the achievements and
obstacles facing girls and women in South Asia.”
Since it came into being five years ago, WOW has travelled from the United Kingdom to the United States, Australia and Africa. The 2016 will mark the festival’s arrival in Pakistan and India.
“WOW provides Pakistani women a platform to mobilise,” British Council Pakistan’s arts director Sumbul Khan. “[It allows women to] address the challenges they face and collectively seek solutions not only within their local context but also by connecting with women across the globe.”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 15th, 2016.
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