SMILE-Springboard Capacity Building Workshop for Working Women

Smile Foundation, in partnership with British Council's Springboard programme, launched the Women’s Development Programme in New Delhi on January 14, 2006. The programme has a series of Capacity Building Workshop for working women in the development and allied sectors.

Dr. Kiran Bedi, Director General, Home Guards & Civil Defence, was the Chief Guest, Speaker and Role Model for the programme, and inaugurated the programme.

"There is a light-and-day difference women having training like this and those not having this," said Bedi. "In crisis, they are the best people to come out as winners."

"Low skilled, family pressure and not having financial authority at home often results in low self-esteem for working women," observed Bedi.

The programme contains a series of four workshops spread over three months in New Delhi. The workshop days are January 14, February 4, March 11 and March 25, 2006. There are 40 participating women professionals from various fields like NGO, Colleges, Schools, Journalism, Health (Doctors), Central Government Departments etc who have enrolled for programme. All the participants will be attending all the workshops.

The objectives and topics of the workshops are enhancing skills and information to take control of life is one of the major objectives of the workshop. The focus areas of workshop include Confidence Building, Conflict Resolution, Self-awareness, Motivation, Balancing Home and Work, Managing one's Image, Cultivating Assertiveness and Setting Goals.

Priti Srivastava, Executive Vice-President, Reliance Industries, was the Chief Speaker for the opening workshop. "As a working woman one needs to work harder to prove herself. She needs to make balance between work and home," Srivastava added. "Keeping a good health, time management and self management are three important things a working woman needs to take care of. Furthermore, there is a Mantra in life for a working woman: AMA - Ability, Motivation and Attitude."

Smile Foundation and Springbaord

Smile Foundation is a development organization which works in 11 Indian states viz. - Rajasthan, Orissa, Maharastra, UP, Uttranchal, Bihar, Delhi, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Jammu & Kashmir - in the fields of quality & special education and health for less privileged children, women's empowerment, disaster management and advocacy etc. Today Smile reaches directly to over 45,000 children and strives to cover one million children in the next five years.

Springboard is a Women Development Programme from British Council. It is the winner of the 1994 UK National Training Award for "Quality and Excellence". Springboard, the training and development programme, has specifically been devised for organisations and institutions that are committed to help their women employees gain their full potential.

"Empowering a woman leads to a balance society. Because, she will not only raise a family and children - the future generation - but also make a valuable contribution professionally," says Ms. Anupama Puri Kalra, Chief Programs Officer, Smile Foundation.

"Smile Foundation is already running a programme named Swabhiman in which we teach self-defence, awareness and capacity building training workshops for women in the communities. Soon we will take it to colleges and corporate. This effort with Springboard is a part of the attempt in empowering women," says Sapna Kulshreshta, Programme Executive, Smile Foundation and Head of Swabhman Programme.

Dr. Neerja Chand and Ms. Arpana Ruth from Springboard are the trainers for the series of workshops.