Lal Bahadur Shas­tri Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy for Women

Every woman has the innate power and they need to be empow­ered for the over­all devel­op­ment of the nation. They have proved their deter­mi­na­tion in every walk of life with their suc­cess sto­ries. But in India, even though women con­sti­tute more than half of the pop­u­la­tion, they have been neglected and dis­crim­i­nated and the atroc­i­ties against women are increas­ing day by day in the coun­try. It is true that when the women soci­ety of the coun­try real­ize their full strengths and be aware of their rights, then only women will have an equal sta­tus with men. Women Empow­er­ment is a feel­ing in the mem­ory banks of every sin­gle woman. And that feel­ing needs to be turned to a dream eventually. 

Ker­ala State Women’s Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (KSWDC), Depart­ment of Social Jus­tice, Gov­ern­ment of Ker­ala emerged a new idea “Women Cell” in Women’s Col­leges in Ker­ala. This Women Cell is a first step to make that dream come true. Through Women Cell, KSWDC aims to redis­cover the strengths which lie inside the younger upcom­ing gen­er­a­tion and show­case their cre­ative work and abil­ity. With this pur­pose KSWDC started Women Cell in 40 selected Women Col­leges in Ker­ala. Women Cell is built on the sus­tain­abil­ity model so that they can in time enhance the skills of other stu­dents also. The Women Cell tries to link the youth with socially rel­e­vant issues. The Women Cell is expected to act as agents of change, who can trans­form the youth into a vibrant com­mu­nity and make them aware of the issues involved in their soci­ety and to equip them with ade­quate man­age­ment skills to han­dle day to day affairs. The Women Cell is the face of KSWDC in col­leges. The objec­tives of Women Cell are the following.

$ · To incul­cate among the youth a sense of social commitment.

$ · To act as a link­ing chan­nel between the com­mu­nity women and KSWDC ( Govt.).

$ · To pro­vide train­ing for women so that they become empow­ered in their younger age thereby mak­ing them self– sus­tain­able in the society.

$ · To cre­ate a feel of empa­thy among the youth to their fel­low beings.

$ · To explore their innate tal­ents and uti­lize them to the max­i­mum for the bet­ter­ment of the society.

The struc­ture of the Women Cell con­sti­tutes the fol­low­ing. KSWDC, Insti­tu­tion, Women Cell, Women Cell– in charge Teacher and Committee.

In our col­lege, the Women Cell Com­mit­tee has 94 stu­dents as its mem­bers. The heads of the Com­mit­tee are Ms. Aneeta Susan of S6 EC and Ms. Vinita V. Nayak of S4 CS. It has 4 wings, Admin­is­tra­tive, Train­ing, Cul­tural and Com­mu­nity Ser­vice wing. In addi­tion there is a staff com­mit­tee con­sist­ing of 5 teach­ers includ­ing the Prin­ci­pal and the Fac­ulty in Charge to assist the Women Cell.

Report of the Activ­i­ties of the KSWDC-​Women Cell ( 2013 – 14)

KSWDC– Women Cell of LBS Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy for Women, Poo­jap­pura started its activ­i­ties on 12 Feb­ru­ary 2014 at 2pm with an inau­gural cer­e­mony at LBSITW . The func­tion was inau­gu­rated by Dr.Lissy Jose,Member of Ker­ala Women’s com­mis­sion. The inau­gu­ra­tion was fol­lowed by a sem­i­nar on the topic ‘Women Empow­er­ment’ by Dr.Lissy Jose which was very infor­ma­tive, inter­ac­tive and it enlight­ened the stu­dents and staff of the col­lege with valu­able infor­ma­tion about the prob­lems faced by women . The func­tion was presided by the Prin­ci­pal, Dr. K.C Raveen­dranathan, LBSITW , felic­i­tated by the Direc­tor, Shri. Say­eed Rashid IPoS., LBS Insti­tute and PTA Vice Pres­i­dent Shri Jayapragas.

11 Mem­bers of Women Cell par­tic­i­pated in the Sthree Sak­thi sem­i­nar on 25 Feb­ru­ary 2014 at Press Cub, Thiru­vanan­tha­pu­ram and 20 Mem­bers includ­ing the Prin­ci­pal of the col­lege par­tic­i­pated in the Work Shop on “Women Empowr­ment” on 7 March 2014 at Co-​Bank Tow­ers, Thiru­vanan­tha­pu­ram con­ducted by Ker­ala State Women’s Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, Depart­ment of Social Justice,Government of Ker­ala and Press­club, in con­nec­tion with Inter­na­tional Women’s Day Celebrations.

About 75 mem­bers of the Women Cell par­tic­i­pated in the She Walkathon on 8 March 2014 in con­nec­tion with Inter­na­tional Women’s Day Celebrations.

Train­ing was given on mak­ing orna­ments like ear rings, ban­gles, chains using pearls and other beads on 8 March 2014 at LBSITW. About 40 mem­bers took part in the Jew­ellery mak­ing class and the trainer was Mrs. Suma. She demon­strated with won­der­ful skills, the art of mak­ing jew­ellery and the stu­dents inspired with her train­ing and cre­ated sev­eral pieces of jewellery. 

A short film ‘David Kanda Pennkutty’ was screened in the col­lege audi­to­rium in the same day forenoon ( 8 March, 2014). The story says about a strug­gling girl and how she is being mis­un­der­stood by the society. 

On March 22 2014, a nearby res­i­dence area was selected — CRA ( Chadi­yara Res­i­dence Asso­ci­a­tion) and con­ducted a sur­vey on women safety in Thiru­vanan­tha­pu­ram city. Eight stu­dents took part in the pro­gramme and they vis­ited 20 houses in CRA.

On March 28 an Aware­ness Class on “The Role of Women and Chil­dren in the Fam­ily “was orga­nized by the Women Cell in asso­ci­a­tion with CRA at Achyutha Menon Cen­tre, Poo­jap­pura. Dr.Pushpabhai, Psy­chol­o­gist and fam­ily coun­cil­lor shared the expe­ri­ences and dis­cussed var­i­ous cases she had dealt in her pro­fes­sional career.

The com­mit­tee selected two first year stu­dents, Priya K.T of Applied Elec­tron­ics and Instru­men­ta­tion and Par­vathy P. Prakash of Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­ogy for the award of Rs. 5000/​-​towards tuition fee as per the order of KSWDC for the year 2013 – 14.

KSWDC Women Cell of LBSITW has par­tic­i­pated in three activ­i­ties orga­nized by KSWDC dur­ing the year 2014 – 15. The activ­i­ties were the following.

1. FIRST AID TRAIN­ING PROGRAMME

Twenty two stu­dents and one fac­ulty of KSWDC Women CellofLBS Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy for Women par­tic­i­pated in the First Aid train­ing pro­gram con­ducted by KSWDC in asso­ci­a­tion with Indian Red Cross Soci­ety, Thri­vanan­tha­pu­ram on 12 and 13 Jan­u­ary 2015 at Indian Red Cross Soci­ety Hall (IMA Hall, Gen­eral Hos­pi­tal), Thri­vanan­tha­pu­ram. Classes were han­dled by emi­nent Doctors.

The train­ing pro­gram mainly focused on cre­at­ing an in-​depth and essen­tial knowl­edge on “First Aid”, the prin­ci­ples of First Aid, imme­di­ate aid­ing steps in emer­gency sit­u­a­tions, thus enabling the young­sters for uti­liz­ing them to the max­i­mum for the bet­ter­ment of the society.

On com­ple­tion of the train­ing, the trainees were exam­ined and First Aid cer­tifi­cate by Indian Red Cross Soci­ety, would be awarded to all those who clear the exam .

2. SANDESH

Sandesh , the ini­tia­tive by a con­sor­tium of sev­eral agen­cies and the Govt. of Ker­ala is a pro­gram to cre­ate women entre­pre­neurs in all the thou­sand local bod­ies of the state. It is public-​private part­ner­ship (PPP) ini­tia­tive of the Ker­ala State Women’s Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (KSWDC). Sandesh in asso­ci­a­tion with IL&FS Skills, New Delhi train women entre­pre­neurs and help them set up micro-​enterprises offer­ing tech­nolo­gies and solu­tions at the grass­roots level.

The launch of ‘Sandesh One’ was attended by 10 stu­dents of final and 2^nd year and 2 fac­ulty mem­bers of LBSITW on 12 Jan­u­ary 2015 at Taj Vivanta.

Shri.Rajiv Pratap Rudy,Minister of States for Skill Devel­op­ment and Entre­preur­ship (Inde­pen­dent Incharge),Govt. of India was the Chief Guest at the cer­e­mony ‚where Shri.Oommen Chandy,Hon.Chief Min­is­ter of Ker­ala, launched ‘Sandesh One’ project in the pres­ence of Dr.M K Muneer, Hon.Minister of Pan­chay­ats and Social Jus­tice, Govt. of Ker­ala. Dr​.PT M Sun­ish ‚MD,KSWDC gave the wel­come speech. A project overview was pre­sented by Shri.RCM Reddy,CEO and MD,IL&FS Skills, New Delhi. Which was fol­lowed by a speech on ‘NSDC and skill Devel­op­ment’ by Shri.Dilip H Chenoy, CEO and MD, National Skill Devel­op­ment Corporation,Govt. of India.

The cer­e­mony was felic­i­tated by Shri. K Muraleedharan,Member,Kerala Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly and Smt. P K Sreemathi Teacher,Member of Parliament.

3. SHE WALKATHON

About 30 mem­bers of the Women Cell par­tic­i­pated in the She Walkathon on 21 March 2015 in asso­ci­a­tion with Metro Manorama in con­nec­tion with Inter­na­tional Women’s Day Cel­e­bra­tions for the sec­ond time from Kanakakkunnu Palace ground to Kow­diar with the objec­tive of cel­e­brat­ing wom­an­hood, empower women and cre­ate aware­ness among them on var­i­ous issues.