Women striving to support their families and nation to achieve

News Desk

Women are breaking the bias and attaining great feats

There is a long-held myth that women are each other’s worst enemies. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Even though Pakistani society is plagued by problems, it is also filled with beautiful motivational stories of its people, particularly that of women striving to support their families and nation to achieve.

From the snow-laden mountains of Gilgit in the North, to the industrial hub in the South, the nation has a good number of women breaking the bias and attaining great feats.

Nomad Art Gallery’s founder Nageen Hayat, has Become a household name who started her journey years ago in 1984. She has dedicated herself to promoting local arts and heritage and supporting local artisans particularly females in reaching their customers.

More and more women are participating to drive the economy their families and their country. This how it should be, because when women don’t understand and fulfil their potentials, it holds back not their but also the progress and prosperity of the nation.

Shua Khalid, co-founder of a continuous learning platform Atom camp, initiated a distinctive ‘Wecamp’ project for women entrepreneurs, to encourage and support more women participation in economic activity and giving a much needed boost to the home-based female entrepreneurs.

This initiative focuses on women entrepreneurs.  They constitute a largely untapped market with potential for immense economic contribution.

Wecamp manager Naheed Ali explained that the aim of the organisation was to financially empower these home-based female entrepreneurs by increasing the visibility of their brands, enabling market linkages, enhancing networking and learning opportunities, and attaining digital skills through training.

Naureen Ijaz Qazi, the owner of an online stationery and hand-crafted journal brand Hiba creations, is another shining example of women of substance.

The small venture she started from her humble abode in 2017, has grown popular not only in her homeland but beyond. The brand has reignited the love for journaling and handcrafted stationery among locals. 80 percent of the shoppers of her products are from her native country Pakistan and majority of them are women buyers.

It will be surprising to note that housewives are more enthusiastic purchasers of my hand-crafted items, Naureen remarked.

Irum  Mumtaz , the founder of ‘Bazeecha  Trust’  and her friends have been active for the past 16 years to impart life skills, quality education and vocational training to women left shelterless by the disastrous earthquake of 2005.

Glancing over to the city of lights in the South, two friends from Karachi, Kamila Rahim Habib and Erum Sultan started their small venture online, to revive the book reading culture and serve bookworms in major cities nationwide via multiple membership tiers and a wide range of literary works of both international and local authors.

Zaira Rizvi, the brains behind ‘The Happiness Bazaar’ began her journey to lend a helping hand to online creatives like her struggling to expand their audience.

She explained that, initially, it was not easy to get creative sellers on board but with support from family and friends, we have done well. We are expecting to expand our range now that   the pandemic is subsiding. After the success of previous events, more people want to join and set up their stall.

Pakistani women are second to none when it comes to pushing forward and giving their blood, sweat and tears to whichever endeavour they apply themselves to. There are more of these warriors and many more can arise, if and only if , the women start believing in themselves and less in the stereotypes and biases around them and against them. They are more than capable showing the leadership to take themselves, their families and their nation forward. APP