Introduction
At eWWG, we believe that correctly
developed and implemented Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) solutions have great potential to assist
disenfranchised and marginalized communities around the
world.
We
fully recognize the importance of the contributions that
local authorities and the voluntary and community sectors
have to make in addressing social inclusion. It is also
recognized that action by national and local agencies is
unlikely to be fully effective without the support and
commitment of community and voluntary groups.
eWWG has been involved in community
development by promoting inclusion in the information
society and knowledge economy for marginalized communities
specifically women.
As a philanthropist, our chairperson,
Salma Abbasi personally champions the Group’s Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR) work and has been involved in
social work for nearly 3 decades. Ms Abbasi started her
social work as a volunteer supporting elderly people,
battered women and children with special needs. From this
voluntary social work she became more engaged with the
community and started working in the realm of Human Rights,
specifically in the area of violence against women and
gender empowerment through financial independence and also
supported and trained women to build their confidence and
personal skills development.
Our division for sustainable
development and empowerment, Devtech is primarily focused
on; gender empowerment, poverty alleviation through income
generation, entrepreneurship development and children with
special needs. We have provided financial support to a
variety of entrepreneurship and income generation programs
across the developing world and have focused on the
inclusion of marginalized communities specifically women and
youth by working closely with the United Nation, various
International development agencies and governments in an
advisory capacity and have thus created successful
strategies for socio-economic development and women’s
empowerment.
We have been working with multiple Governments in an
advisory capacity for creating strategies for inclusion and
empowerment of marginalized communities specifically youth
and women and promoting security and sustainable
socioeconomic development;
ICT Minister of
Mauritius,
Minister
for Post and Telecommunication, Comoros,
the Government
of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).
Ms. Abbasi is playing a key role for
the inclusion of marginalized women in the capacity of a
Strategic Advisor to Chair of the British Government Women’s
Taskforce Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME), Rt. Hon.
Baroness Uddin.
Overview of our international experience for Inclusion Work
1-
UK Government Ministry of Community Cohesion
–
(2008 – Ongoing)
Initiative focused at Inclusion and Engagement of Black
Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) Women
Working
in collaboration with the Chair
of the British
Government Women’s
Taskforce, Rt. Hon. Baroness Uddin, the first Muslim member
of the House of Lords, to support the organization in the
capacity of a strategic advisor to address the under
representation of women in public life in order to help make
local and central government more representative of the
community and thus enable the inclusion of BAME women.
eWWG is supporting the BAME Taskforce in developing
strategies, to conduct the holistic multidimensional
capability and capacity building of women councillors
through a progressive and ongoing process to create a cost
effective virtual living network support structure to assist
women councillors in effectively performing their roles and
responsibilities.
Additionally, awareness campaigns have been conducted to
encourage women to step forward to become councillors and to
mainstream BAME women in multiple streams of political life.
2-
International Telecommunication Union for Development
(ITU-D), Geneva, Switzerland
(2008
– Ongoing)
Supporting the Inclusion of Women in Africa
Created and designed different models of Multipurpose
Community Telecentres classified under various categories
based on the type of services they will be offering to the
targeted communities (Business
MCT, ICT MCT, Vocational MCT, Agriculture MCT, Fishery MCT,
Husbandry MCT, Telemedicine MCT, Gender Specific MCT,
Community MCT and e Government MCT)
focused on inclusion and empowerment of women in Africa.
This initiative has been initially launched by the ITU for
12 beneficiary countries;
Cameroon, Cape Verde, Democratic Republic of Congo,
Ethiopia, Honduras, Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Mali,
Sudan and Zambia.
This has assisted the beneficiary countries to implement
practical relevant models that provide women the access to
ICTs and improve the inclusion of marginalized communities
and the gender balance along with practical techniques for
sustainable social and economic development. The models were
designed to ensure the Integration of gender perspective in
the community, commercialization and governance aspects to
enable inclusion and true empowerment.
3-
United Nations Industrial Development Organization
(UNIDO) and Government of Uganda (ICT Ministry)
–
(2007)
Creation and Implementation of Sustainable Telecentres
Developed a framework for the creation and implementation of
sustainable ICT solutions (SMEs) through the establishment
of DBICs at Kampala, Uganda. We have also supported and
contributed in a two day workshop organized by UNIDO and
Microsoft in Kampala for creating the awareness on the usage
of ICT tools for the improvement in productivity and
efficiency of SMEs.
The
workshop was focused primarily at imparting knowledge to the
personnel that will be operating the six pilots DBICs in
Uganda. This provided them to have the relevant information
to allow for the “Development of sustainable information and
communication technologies and Information support services
for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the
district and rural areas of Uganda” to support the inclusion
of marginalized communities specifically youth and women.
4-
Chairman of Senate, Governor of Sindh, Pakistan –
(2002 - Ongoing)
First Women’s Leadership Forum in Pakistan (WLF)
Launched the first women’s leadership forum (WLF) in
December, 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan. It is a platform,
created to facilitate change, and to support women to start
and run their own businesses. A regular “Forum” where
entrepreneur women could present their business cases, plan,
goals and requirements to people from the private and public
sectors and donor organizations. This forum was focused at
supporting the inclusion of women through financial
independence and economic empowerment by enabling them to
take their businesses to the next level of success.
Subsequent to the forum, special workshops and mentoring was
provided to the women to support the creation of simple
business plans for their home-based businesses. e WWG after
that funded these plans and created a local support network
with local government offices which resulted in the creation
of new SMEs.
5-
Family Education Services Foundation (FESF) –
(2002 - Ongoing)
Inclusion of Children and Youth with Special Needs- Deaf and
Dumb
Developed a strategy for using ICTs to provide basic
education to deaf and dumb children in the urban and rural
areas of Sindh. We donated computers and laptops to enable
presentations and workshops for capacity building to occur
for parents and multi-media education for children in the
rural and urban areas. Transportation was also donated to
address the access and mobility issues for children and
youth living in peri-urban slums. Partnerships with
multi-national organizations are been created to obtain the
latest applications to support the education and further
inclusion in to society for the children and subsequent
employment. i.e. in partnership with the International
chambers of commerce, obtained the support of Kentucky Fried
Chicken (KFC) to operate and manage 5 of their fast food
outlet stores by deaf and dumb youths.
6-
Royal Bind Institute, London, UK and IDA RIEU Welfare
Association, School for the Blind
–
(2002)
Inclusion of Children and Youth with Special Needs - Blind
Researched various training aids and tools available in
partnership with the Royal Blind Institute, London, UK to be
able to provide the latest modified ‘gadgets’ to allow the
inclusion into information society i-e, Braille keyboards,
screens, voice activated devices, special videos and toys
that promoted learning for children with varying degrees of
blindness.
7-
Federal Ministry of IT and Telecommunication (MOITT),
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), –
(2007)
Pakistan’s First International ICT4D Conference for the
Inclusion of Youth and Women
Organized Pakistan’s first International ICT4D conference in
March, 2007 which was based on sharing best practices,
lessons learned, and critical success factors for
sustainability. Eighteen (18) International speakers and
experts were invited from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia
and UK. The conference was conducted in 3 major cities;
Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi, inviting over 900 women and
students from diverse areas and backgrounds. The format of
this conference was interactive, through the active
engagement of all the participants through a series of
exercises which focused on launching specific projects on
sustainable development through practical income generation
and entrepreneurship development programs which resulted in
the inclusion of youth and women.
The
objective of this workshop was to allow the marginalized
women and youth to use ICTs as an enabler for Income
Generation and support the Government’s initiatives to meet
the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). Additionally, this
platform was used to create a working group of ICT users and
build a support network for success.
8-
Toyota, Indus Motors Pakistan –
(2007)
Initiative for the Inclusion and Engagement of Marginalized
Communities
Conducted a detailed needs assessment of Razzaqabad Goth (village)
to identify the key skills and capabilities of the local
community and created innovative income generation methods
to effectively utilize the local skills and enable the
inclusion of these marginalized communities through economic
empowerment. We also created a model for the up gradation
and enhancement of the local clinic to transform it into a
telemedicine centre which provided valuable information to
prevent diseases and out breaks from spreading in the local
community.
9-
Nazim (Mayor) of Jacobabad –
(2007, 2005, 2002)
Initiative for the Inclusion and Engagement of Marginalized
Women
We have supported the Women Crisis Centre in Jacobabad, in
rural Sindh, Pakistan, where we conducted workshops on
networking with other support organizations to build
awareness in women about their rights from an Islamic
perspective along with skills development for home-based
businesses that supported their economic empowerment along
with regaining their self respect and self esteem in
society. Additionally, a support network was created with
women of ‘means’ and professional women to provide clothes,
expertise advice and other types of support that were
required to enable their re-engage and inclusion into the
society.
10-
Multiple Organizations and Governments - Preventing
Violence Against Women
(1981 – Ongoing)
Awareness and Empowerment of Women
We have been actively involved in multiple activities for
preventing violence against women
and using various techniques to bridge the gender gap and
enable the inclusion of marginalized women. Our Chairperson
created a support group for counselling battered women in
the Bay area, USA. For this purpose, she created a network
of professional support services that they required from the
South Asian women’s group, “NARI”. She conducted confidence
building workshops which allowed the reintegration of
battered women into the society. This initiative greatly
supported the inclusion of these marginalized women. Later
she
founded a non-profit organization in California called “Rahima”
with Sister Habibe Hussain, concentrating on assisting the
marginalized Muslim people in the Bay Area community.
Salma Abbasi also performed counselling of the first
generation of Asian American Muslim girls on cultural
clashes and established “mother and daughter” events to
encourage dialogue between both the generations and to get a
better understanding of the invisible social pressures faced
by youth.
She designed and conducted a series of workshops at
community centres, mosques and shelters that supported
confidence building and personal skills development to
enable the re-entry of battered women in to society. This
enabled the women to become economically empowered and thus
sustain their independence.
