Women empowerment: Girl guides’ chief on the road to success

Underlines the importance of discipline, service, and honesty.

ISLAMABAD:

With a focus on confidence-building in young women, Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) Minister for Tourism, Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs Sadia Danish inspired an audience of girl guides.

She was addressing an investiture ceremony held at the Pakistan Girls Guide Association (PGGA) at its headquarters here on Wednesday.

Danish, who was inducted as the Chief Guide of the G-B chapter, spoke about empowerment of women. She said that despite the inherently patriarchal framework of the country, women in her region are “relatively emancipated” and encouraged to pursue education and jobs.

One of six women in the G-B assembly and the only female representative in the G-B cabinet, the 37-year-old minister has stood tall and fierce. The new position is an opportunity to extend the scope of her empowerment efforts, through the establishment of a guide house for which Danish has written off a generous Rs2.5 million from her development budget.

While some districts in G-B, including Hunza, project a 100% literacy rate, the overall figure for female literacy in the region remains at 41%. Danish believes that the guide house will serve as a platform for young women to express themselves and to learn discipline, service to others, honesty and sincerity of purpose so as to become role models for others.



Draped in white saris and green sashes, the senior guides at the ceremony were a glimpse of the kind of poise, confidence and values inculcated in the women who volunteer as girls guide.

“Those who continue to endorse and believe in the guides are the ones who will sustain it,” said National Commissioner Farhana Azeem. While the girl guides may fall at odds with a fast-paced society with little patience for such leisurely self-grooming, its membership across Pakistan – which stands at 117,692 – is an indicator of its decades-long success.

“The realisation that we are losing our values will revive us,” explained senior guide Maria Maud Sabri, who joined the PGGA when she was six. “We are regularly updating our activities and badges to keep at pace with times.”

Founded in 1947, PGGA uses activities to instruct young women on behaviour, preparedness, community service, social, educational and health issues and entrepreneurial development.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2013.