Women's empowerment

TWA embarks on an Advanced Tibetan Women’s Leadership Training, 2010

The time is now ripe for She-roes and States-Women

Tibetan Womens Association logoAlbeit statistics say that the workforce in CTA accounts to 46%-female and 54%- male. But is also reveals a shocking discrepancy of only 3% of ‘Women on top level’ in stark contrast to the 97% male. The same picture fits in other frames of tibetan exile Diaspora as well. TWA is now hands-on preparing for the first ever ‘Advanced Tibetan Women’s Leadership Training’ (June 2010) targeting the potential women leaders to enable their representation in the higher realms of representation and ranks of governance . The training also seeks to accentuate the Kashag’s eight point policy towards achieving women’s empowerment and to essentially provide a forum for women leaders to take the leap forward.

The ‘Advanced Tibetan Women’s Leadership Training’ is scheduled to be held from in the second week of June this year at the House of Peace and Dialogue, Upper TCV School, Dharamsala.

In a statement released by the cabinet of CTA on September 2, 2008, it stated that, “In order to establish a true democratic society, it is very important to have gender equality in general, and particularly women should equally partake in the administrative and political work of a country”. The cabinet outlined an eight-point policy to empower Tibetan women’s equal participation in the successful establishment of non-violent and democratic Tibetan community as envisioned by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The third point emphasizes that the Tibetan settlements should make efforts in having women as representatives and settlement officers, and also underscored the need to strengthen women’s role in the administration and politics of the democratic Tibetan community. This training strives to make this third point a reality.

TWA aims to address the dearth of female representation in the civil society of Tibetans in exile. For instance only 5 of the 54 current Settlement Officers are female. For over a year, TWA has been working on this training which is first of its kind. The main objective of this training is to empower Tibetan women in leadership qualities and to boost female representation in the decision-making positions in the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) and other myriad avenues of the exile Tibetan society and in the global arena. The program will be followed by monthly workshops and networking days to help create a permanent, expanding female social and political network. Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA) is promoting gender perspectives that will make the Kashag’s Policy on Women’s Empowerment more effective, and provide critical insight and dedication to many social and gender-specific issues.

This training will be two weeks long and will attract as much as 30 able women from all over India. The past, week-long leadership trainings have proven extremely successful in fostering leadership skills among Tibetan women and Tibetan nuns, and in encouraging women to become effective leaders within their own lives and within the community. This one will be much more intensive and focus specifically on empowering women as political representatives.

In conducting this training, TWA pays for accommodation and transport of the participants, TWA staff, and speakers, as well as rents and learning tools for participants. The Tibetan Women Leadership Training aims to foster leadership skills among Tibetan women, and therefore strengthening the whole Tibetan democratic community by empowering our women. There are many decisions relating to women and children that are socially crucial, such as education, maternal health, community-based services, and equal legal rights, where opinions, advises and expertise of women is indispensable. Also the working atmosphere has proven to be better with mixed. By the end of this training, we aspire to see women who are not only empowered, but also capable, prepared and willing to take up challenging roles in the decision making arena in the CTA and other areas of decision making. Eventually, this training will produce more able women leaders in the higher realms of the administration.

With this training, we plan to give the participants a unique opportunity to stand on the threshold of the creative process of building leadership skills and give them the right impetus and skills to reach for higher levels of leadership.

As of April 2010, Dr.Kiran Bedi, social activist and retired Indian Police Officer Service-(IPS) has agreed to grace the occasion and deliver a talk on ‘motivation.’ Gaea Logan, professional psychotherapist, a professor and author will lead sessions on personal dialogue, Lynda O Lepcha, the director and master trainer of Holistic Training Solutions (New Delhi) will hold the core training on Building Leadership Skills’. The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation (USA) has agreed to support his maiden venture of TWA with the much needed financial impetus. Michelle Pomeroy, a graduate student at New York University and Tenzin Palkyi former TWA staff and now a graduate student at the University of Kentucky is hands-on, working to make this ambitious project of TWA a grand success.

Please follow the posts on our website for further updates on this milestone and breakthrough Training.

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