Gender Empowerment Workshop by Women Engineers Pakistan and USAID U.S PCASW

On 10th June 2015, US-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water held a Gender Empowerment Workshop at Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Sindh. Gender equality and women’s empowerment have gained increasing importance both as objectives and as instruments for poverty reduction. The motive of the workshop was to highlight the issues which women’s are facing and how to resolve it which I believe is one of the major areas in our society that needs stability and equal rights for both men and women. Women Engineers Pakistan was privileged to be offered team work with the USAID US-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water Project, specifically in Women Empowerment component of this 5 year project. Team was invited at the workshop, sorting out gender issues in Pakistan which is a male dominant society, like any other is very important. This workshop had 3 primary objectives: 1. Perspectives on gender issues in the nation of Pakistan as a whole 2. Perspective on gender issues in the professional community 3. Perspective on gender issues in an academic setting This workshop consisted of 4 sessions. In the opening session, Dr. Christine Pomeroy and Dr. Steve Burian from University of Utah (USA) gave the Welcome Remarks and Opening Remarks. Dr. Bakhsal Lashari gave the Welcome Remarks which was then followed by a presentations on Understanding Gender and Gender Equality , Major Barriers and Enablers for Women in Engineering, Perspective on Gender from women in academic setting and final session was concluded by an overview and discussion of Gender Equality Plan for US-PCAS-W. Overall the workshop was very interactive.