Ludhiana (Punjab): The incandescence of ‘Tu hai Shakti’ - Nationwide Women Empowerment Drive against sex selective abortions, that got its direction from the training of trainers workshops organized in 8 prescribed target states, wherein state ambassadors, branch preachers and volunteers were educated and equipped with all the essential tools required to attain the laid objective; continues to be in a spree of empowering women holistically. In the same vein, another milestone was touched by undertaking a grand Women Empowerment workshop in the Ludhiana city of Punjab on Feb 24, 2019.
According to the 2009 Country Report of Government of India, "Empowerment means moving from a position of enforced powerlessness to one of power". Ironically, today, on one side women are touching skies but on the flip side, crime against them in the form of rising gender based violence, dowry deaths, high maternal mortality, child brides, slavery in domestic work, trafficking, abduction and feticide is an ever rising phenomenon.
That’s the irony of today’s society. It has given platform to escalate to heights but it fails to mask the underlying subjugation that even the self-dependent women are subjected to. When a woman lives her life on her own conditions, she is judged by many people. Her decisions are questioned by many. Her thoughts, ideas and actions are binged by many.
Santulan’s Tu Hai Shakti drive thus believes in reinforcing an umbrella concept of Women Empowerment over and above the educational, social, political and ideological empowerment, by awakening in women their unexplored dimension of spiritual empowerment. By bestowing upon them the eternal science of Self-Realization, Santulan ignites in them the much needed self-confidence to fiercely fight any kind of subjugation.
Hence, even in such dilemmatic scenario of women’s growth vs. her victimization at the ends of crime and violence, Santulan is carving women who question and deny hundreds year old prejudicial traditions, rituals and cultural doctrines followed by the society.
Santulan is working across the Nation with a two-pronged approach (a) advocacy against all forms of discrimination and violence against women particularly female feticide and (b) holistic empowerment of women building their capacity through functional literacy, livelihood generation skills and ideological evolution, by rigorous conduct of workshops, seminars, conferences with experts and the peer group, counseling sessions, massive rallies, group discussions, street theatre and awareness desk in different parts of the country.
