S. Vishnu Sharma
IIT Madras students have launched an online campaign to empower women during this pandemic period by creating awareness about opportunities in education, upskilling, and financial literacy.
Through the ‘She Can’ social initiative taken up as part of the annual Tech Festival Shaastra, the IIT Madras students provided career guidance counselling to girls from schoSols and college across India.
IIT Madras students also conducted sessions on financial management for working women in Mumbai and Chennai.
This online campaign of IIT Madras students was intended to help them adapt to the ‘New Normal’ created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
IIT Madras students give a great push for women empowerment
Praising IIT Madras students for their social initiative, Professor Shaikh Faruque Ali said Shaastra does a social outreach every year wherein our students interact with schools in and around the city for various social activities.
This year, even being constrained by the pandemic, the IIT Madras students came up with a brilliant idea of ‘She Can,’ said Professor Faruque Ali who is faculty advisor for Shaastra 2021.
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‘Initially, it felt to be an ambitious project, but IIT Madras students pulled all the strings and made it a reality.’
This is a campaign where we all need to be part of and I am happy that IIT Madras students have taken it up.
I congratulate IIT Madras students’ team and thank all to be a part of the initiative, said Professor Shaikh.
The campaign by IIT Madras students was launched virtually on 3 January with a panel discussion.
Eminent wowen from various walks of life took part in the discussion held to launch the campaign taken up by IIT Madras students.
Among those who took part in the discussion were Professor Preeti Aghalayam, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Madras, Ms. Roopa Karemungikar, Vice President of Customer Value, HighRadius, Ms. Vandhana Ramanathan, Co-founder of Wsquare, and Ms. Jagadharini SampathKumar, Former VP National Stock Exchange of India Limited.
Panel discussion conducted to launch the campaign of IIT Madras students touched upon women empowerment topics in multiple fields and helped the listeners gain valuable insights into how to navigate the corporate world.
It also discussed on dealing with obstacles in a career in technology and develop the skills needed to take up leadership roles in their lives.
The IIT Madras students organized three career guidance sessions for over 190 girls from schools across the country.
The guidance sessions by IIT Madras students yielded good response.
With the help of career counsellors, these sessions reduced the percentage of students confused about their future plans from 80.2 per cent to 26 per cent.
In addition, leaders in entrepreneurship interacted with around 200 college girls across the country as a part of the campaign by IIT Madras students.
They highlighted the multiple opportunities available for women and motivated them to follow their passion.
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As much as 58.9 per cent of the students felt that they learned about new opportunities they would not have found out about otherwise and 59.6 per cent felt an increase in their confidence and motivation levels after the session.
Speaking about the objectives behind the initiative by IIT Madras students, Neha Mahesh, Student Coordinator (Public Relations Team) Shaastra 2021 said since the last couple of decades, the growth that gender equality has brought in society is truly inspirational.
Besides, we observed that it is essential to elevate the prevalent perception of financial literacy and career guidance among women and girls, said Neha Mahesh.
‘The ‘She Can’ initiative tries to contribute our hand at promoting this awareness at a very young age by connecting with various schools and NGOs around the city,’ said Neha.
Further, financial literacy sessions were also conducted for over 85 women working in the unorganized sector in two different languages (Marathi and Tamil) during the lockdown period.
Students are also creating awareness about essential financial concepts such as ‘budgeting’ and ‘banking’ in the upcoming months.
Updates about the ‘She Can’ campaign will be shared on the following social media channel – ‘https://www.instagram.com/p/CJldUb1Ah6Q/’