CSRC CELEBRATES SUCCESSFUL CONCLUSION OF HUM QADAM PROJECT
Ms. Valerie Khan, a civil society expert on women issues delivering the keynote address at Hum Qadam outreach event
Dr. Sadrudin Pardhan, Director CSRC thanking the guests and speakers for their presence at the Hum Qadam outreach event
20 March, 2012, Civil Society Resource Centre (CSRC), a Project of Aga Khan Foundation Pakistan celebrated the success of its three-year long women development project titled ‘Women Empowered through Citizen’s Community Board’ also famous as the Hum Qadam Project. This half day event showcased the project overview and applauded the accomplishments of women members from civil society organisations of grass root areas in Gwadar, Badin, Murree, Ghanche, Chitral, Lahore and Karachi that participated in the project.
The event commenced with remarks by Dr. Karim Alibhai, CEO, Aga Khan Foundation, Pakistan (AKF, P) who welcomed the project participants, development experts and leadership from Civil Society Organisations to the event. While talking about AKF (P)’s approach to women empowerment he said that, ‘All our projects are underpinned by values of community based and participatory approaches. Our outlook towards women empowerment is holistic and well integrated with our ideology of respecting the culture and reinforcing the civil society in areas that we work in.’
Development professionals, donors, policy makers and leadership from various civil society organisations at the Hum Qadam outreach event
Mrs. Anis Haroon, chief guest, meeting the project beneficiaries
This was followed by an interactive presentation that featured project overview elucidating the best-practices observed and the lessons learnt during the project. Speaking to the audience, Mr. Salman Khimani, Programme Coordinator, CSRC shared the key highlights of project. He said that, ‘during the course of the project, CRSC has developed leadership, project proposal development and local resource mobilization capacity of 187 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), 55 of which are led by women.’
He added, ‘the evidence of Hum Qadam’s success is best demonstrated by the fact that four of the participating organisations have received funding from local and international donors for their project proposals.’
Congratulating the Hum Qadam team on its success, Mrs. Valerie Khan, a women development and civil society expert, emphasized the importance of a facilitative legal environment and bottom-up approach for sustainable women empowerment. She said that the development professionals must consider the culture and background of beneficiaries and adapt their initiatives accordingly.
The event was presided over by Mrs. Anis Haroon, Chairperson National Commission on the Status of Women who while speaking to the women members from participating CSOs, appreciated them for showing the courage and commitment to leave confines of their homes to work for their community’s prosperity and voice the development needs of women of their respective areas.
The event concluded with vote of thanks by Dr. Sadrudin Pardhan, Director Civil Society Resource Centre, who assured the commitment of CSRC to continue to lead innovative projects like Hum Qadam in future that set models for fostering women empowerment initiatives in Pakistan.
For more details please download Project Publication . Inspiring Stories from the field can also be viewed on following link: Hum Qadam Videos
