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ISWO - International Sindhi Women Organization

 

International Sindhi Women Organization Celebrate International Women’s Day


Los Angeles, March 12, 2014
By Dilip Butani

ISWO celebrated International Women’s day at The Woodlands Restaurant on Saturday March 8, 2014. The attendees and participants were both from India and Pakistan. ISWO is a newly established non-profit community based group.  It has been active in UK for past two years.

Samina Panwhar, President of ISWO’s US Chapter welcomed the guests and said “Today’s event is special at many levels; it is first of its kind gathering of American-Sindhi women at such a large scale. Sindhi women from various backgrounds have come to celebrate the bond of womanhood and the bond of Sindhi culture.” Benazir Shaikh was the master of ceremonies. “It is good to see all these Sindhi women and especially young women being part of our celebration to tonight,” she said. Benazir is a senior member of ISWO.

The all-women speakers panel consisted of Sobhya Agha, a former UN Worker and a TV Anchor, Dr. Rosie Kar, an adjunct faculty at the Cal State University, Long Beach, Dr. Geet Chainani, Founder of Life Bridges, Sindh Flood Relief, Ambreen Joyo, an Engineer and an Entrepreneur, and Sara Sadhwani, a community and immigrant’s rights advocate. Chief guest of the evening was business tycoon Sunil Tolani, CEO of Prince Organization.

Sobhya Agha highlighted the struggle of Sindhi women in all walks of life. She shared her current work on Human Trafficking and a pictorial presentation of her recent work in Sindh advocating for gender equality and violence against women issues. She showed how Sindhi women of todays’ Sindh are struggling in all possible ways starting from being at grass-root level up to becoming the legislative members of provincial and national assemblies in Pakistan.  She further said that on this International Women’s Day she would also want to recognize the men who support the struggles as well as achievements of women.

Dr. Kar gave an overview of the courses she teaches on popular culture, and in her multi-media presentation, showed how misogyny and objectification of women in general, and women of color in particular is prevalent today, within pop culture around the world. Using an intersectional lens, where race, class, gender, and sexuality are all important strands of identity and experience, it is crucial to pay attention to popular culture, since it reflects current political climates.

Dr Geet Chanani, a Physician based in New Jersey, who has volunteered in Sindh during the maga-floods of 2010-2011, presented the slides of her work on medical camps in Sindh.

Ambreen Joyo, who works as an engineer and pursues technology research along with running a successful business and a community volunteer to many causes including Interfaith forums.  She said “Yes, I work hard and juggle through all these roles, but that is what makes me a woman,” in midst of round of applause from the audience.

Ms. Sara Sadhwani, a vocal voice on immigrant rights, shared her grass-root activism efforts to bring equality for all in our society. She led teams of advocates in support of immigration reform, immigrant integration and access to quality health and human services for low income Latino and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities at the local, state and federal levels while working at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (now Asian Americans Advancing Justice) and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Kavita Teckchandani, the main organizer and an attorney by profession gave a wonderful audio-video presentation. Kavita has been active in various projects concerning the settlement of Hindu refugees from Pakistan who are now languishing in shabby camps in Rajsthan. She spoke about her work in Indian camps and also regarding issues like visa arrangements, school education, health issues of the refugees,  kavita emphasized on the positive aspects of the situation and informed that majority of people living in Sind at present preferred secularism and democracy. 

Sunil Tolani the Chief Guest preferred to speak at the end.  This young and successful entrepreneur and humanitarian mentioned that the International Women’s Day is now being observed for over 100 years. In his small but impressive speech, he admired the role of women in building the society and nation. He attributed his personal success to many a women that included his grand-mother, mother and wife.  He said that they have to a great extent contributed enormously in character building as well as his meteoric rise in the business empire. The spiritual teachings of being honest, respectful, humble, non-judgmental and hard-working have all come from the women in his life.  He said, “it was my mother who told me to follow the stars and strive hard to reach the goal, whatever it may take” Even now almost 95 percent of his business work force consists of women and he is only most happy and satisfied about it. In his opinion, women are equally or perhaps more capable and confident than men in most job situations.  In his organization, they regularly enlist young women and train them for higher management skills.

Event presented multi-media entertainment and informational videos highlighting the work and achievements of Sindhi women across the globe. Other speakers on the event included Mr. Pirbhu Lal Satyani and Ms. Melanie Kamila Williams. Organizations that supported the event included Sindhi Association of Southern California, World Sindhi Congress and South Asian Network and South Asians for Justice. A fundraiser was held to establish a women shelter in Hyderabad and a refugee center in Rajasthan.

Entertainment program included a classical dance performance by Meena Makhijani over a Sufi song, Sindhi music by Sarla Sippy & Suresh Makhijani, and Stand-up comedy by Abhay Kulkarni. Speeches and performances were followed by a sumptuous dinner. ISWO recognized the volunteers Pramol Dhawan, Venus Shaikh, Saghir Shaikh, Ayaz Gul Soomro, Mohan Dadlani, Kishan Hingorani, Ramesh, Rukmani Maline and Manal Joyo. ISWO has celebrated a similar event in United Kingdom.

About ISWO: International Sindhi Women Organization (ISWO) endeavors to empower Sindhi women   through capacity building and leadership. ISWO is committed to promote Sindhi women’s civil, social and political rights at international platforms.  ISWO is dedicated to advance Sindhi women’s role in policy and decision making processes in all spheres of society, i.e., economic, political, social and environmental, locally and internationally. For more information one may visit SindhiWomen.Org.