FLO Women Empowerment, WE in Education landmark initiative launched in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh

As there is a great need and opportunity to increase the employment of women as support staff in schools in India, FICCI Ladies Organisation, FLO launched an ambitious ‘FLO Women Empowerment, WE in Education’initiative at Seth AnandramJaipuria School in Kanpur. Mrs. Deepa Agarwal, Sub. Divisional Magistrate of Kanpur and Mr. Rakesh Kumar Mishra Mission Director Skill Development Uttar Pradesh were present to pledge their support to this initiative.

Maruti Driving School Network Manager Lucknow Mr. Aditya Malhan and Mr Sanjeev Kumar Pandey, Branch Manager For G4S Secure Solutions (I) Pvt Ltd. Pledged their support to train women as van drivers for schools and security guards.

MsShrutiJhunjhunwala, chair for the WE Initiative in Lucknow and Kanpur said that this is the first of FLO’s pan India team to take this initiative forward and we look forward to creating more jobs for women and safer environment for children at schools.

In the wake of recent unfortunate incidents with school going girls in various parts of the country, the initiative aims to have more women in schools in non-teaching jobs to help address the issue of safety of children. Also, for women coming into employment for the first time, schools would provide an excellent and secure environment to work in. The initiative is being spearheaded by FLO members running educational institutions to bring about this change and is being carried out by the 13 Chapters of FLO pan-India.

The Launch saw key stakeholders on the same platform who pledged their commitment and support to the initiative byemploying more women staff in schools. Ms. Jayanti Dalmia, on the FLO WE in Education Committee and National Governing Body Member shared her perspective on implementing the initiative in schools.

In her presentation, Ms Jyotsna Kaur Habibullah Chairperson, FLO Lucknow-Kanpur, said that they were delighted all those who attended pledged their support to this landmark initiative and the District Magistrate’s office especially assured that they would help to identify women in need to train and employ. She added that FLO has invited the government, school owners, security agencies, bus and catering companies working with schools nationwide to pledge to participate actively in this initiative along with skill trainers for these jobs.

Leading schools from Kanpur including Delhi Public School Kalyanpur,Allen House Public School,Swaraj International, D.P.S. Azad Nagar, St. Marys and other prestigious schools of Kanpur pledged to be part of the initiative. The Schools took a pledge to give preference to women in employment that for jobs opening up for the positions of security guards, administrative staff, bus drivers or bus conductors or even other jobs. If the staff was being employed on contractual basis, they would urge their contractors to assign women for these positions.

Also present on the occasion were Civil Society Organisations and NGOs working with women at the grassroots in need of skill development and placementwith FLO committee members and WE team Pooja Gupta, MeenuJhunjhunwala ,Archana Khaitan, Anuradha Varshney, Usha Agarwal