Launch of ‘FLO Women Empowerment (WE) in Education’ initiative

FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) launched its ambitious and flagship initiative ‘FLO Women Empowerment (WE) in Education’ on 24 April 2015 at FICCI.

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. The initiative is being spearheaded by FLO members running educational institutions to bring about this change and will be implemented across the 15 Chapters of FLO pan-India.

The Launch saw key stakeholders coming on the same platform who pledged their commitment and support to the initiative by employing more women staff in schools.

In her presentation, Ms. Archana Garodia Gupta, President, FLO, said that research showed that in the private school network very few women were employed as non-teaching staff. Hence there was a great need and opportunity of women in jobs such as security guards, office attendants in administration, bus drivers and bus helpers, canteen staff & management. 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.

Chief Guest, Dr Kiran Bedi, IPS suggested in her Keynote Address that there is need to promote early leadership in young girls and boys so that they are able to decide early to enter a non-traditional job. She added that instead of lectures, inspirational books should be used to inspire children.

Leading schools from the Delhi NCR region like Banyan Tree School, Birla Vidya Niketan, Chiranjiv Bharti School, Jaipuria Schools, Khaitan Public School, Manav Rachna School, Mordern School, Springdales School and The Shri Ram Schools took a pledge that for jobs opening up for the positions of security guards, administrative staff, bus drivers or bus conductors or even other jobs, they would give preference to women in employment. If the staff was being employed on contractual basis, they would urge their contractors to assign women for these positions.

An important takeaway from the Launch was the support extended by three key training and skill partners of the initiative. Mr Mahesh Rajoria on behalf of Maruti Suzuki pledged to train 1500 women as drivers across 15 Chapter of FLO free of cost which translates into Rs 3 crores.

In addition, Advanced Security Training & Management Pvt Ltd (ASTM) also pledged its support under the initiative by training women as security guards. G4S India, leading security solutions group promised jobs for 10,000 women security guards over next 3 years.

Also present on the occasion were Civil Society Organisations and NGOs working with women at the grassroots in need of skill development and placement. Many of these organisations have already identified a pool of women who are ready to be enrolled in the skill program.

Further Ms Saritha V, the First Woman DTC Driver and Ms Meena Singh Rajput, a woman who drives a school van in Delhi ferrying children to and from school shared their experiences and insights.

Earlier, Ms. Vasvi Bharatram, Vice President, FLO shared her perspective on implementing the initiative in schools. Ms. Vinita Bimbhet, Senior Vice President, FLO gave the Vote of Thanks.