:: womenofindia.com ::

www.womenofindia.net A Network of Women of India Worldwide Power women to empower India^TM
Context and Need	The urban India woman is fortunate in terms of equality of opportunity for education and therefore employment and entrepreneurship, yet is lagging behind in special skills needed for the knowledge economy of the 21st century. The Rural Indian woman’s needs are more basic: for food, shelter, literacy, health and sanitation but it will not be long before the basic needs will be fulfilled and aspirations will emerge, when there will be an urgent need to equip them with the new skills needed in the Digital Age. India’s Woman Power as a group both Urban and Rural is untapped and the Digital Age presents an unprecedented opportunity.
Slogan	www.womenofindia.net This is currently a beta site Power women to Empower India.^TM
Objective	To leverage technology for development: To create a web based resource for women of India: Both in India and Internationally. To tap India’s Woman Power: the under-utilized human resource and skills of under-employed and unemployed qualified urban women. To encourage women owned small businesses and provide an e-commerce portal for home based businesses and entrepreneurship, to enable them to market their products and services on a level playing field, made possible through communication technology and the internet. Sample e-store ready in proprietary software. To provide Women of India the basic skills of IT literacy and Financial literacy to empower them to meet the challenges ahead. Online courses and training programs with Local Finance Partner. Work in progress. In discussions with a Media Partner. Use the portal to create a knowledge sharing and collaboration environment for mentoring young women and locating resources for financing of ideas. To provide information on resources, scholarships and opportunities that are intended specially for women offered by Govt. Universities and Private sector. To find ways to include the large semi-urban population using vernacular communication. Most resources are in English while a very miniscule percentage of persons in India communicate in English. To create a local job bank of part time and assignment based jobs for women in a zip-code. This would be beneficial for the invisible woman workforce as well as for local companies who will save on finding suitable human resources. To create a grass roots level community of women who are interested in collaborating to give back to and help with development programmes back in India in their village or home town.
Community participation	Every woman will be able to register her special skill sets and time availability or constraints into a database that can be searched by companies that are looking to encourage part time or full time employment of the woman workforce. The womenofindia.net portal will give companies/employers instant access to centralised information by geographic or any other attributes and will give women the information to seek/leverage the opportunities available. We will support open educational resources and the FOSS movement: The Wikimedia Foundations efforts in India and support Creative Commons Licences.
Launch Schedule	The site www.womenofindia.net is online and open for persons to register and communicate and our launch event will be titled: “ Saree Conversations” scheduled for the Spring 2012. Ask for details. -Year long month wise theme events in different geographies. - Support of programmes by/for women. WOI has already supported its first project ‘Stree Shakti’ a print publication of about 500 Women Entrepreneurs in Navi Mumbai. Need to take it online. Official National launch: (Date and to be confirmed) National Video Conference with representatives from all States participating. Annual Event: RACE FOR DIGITAL AND FINANCIAL LITERACY. Rally/Treasure Hunt/Quiz sponsored by companies/Govt. departments to create an awareness of the need for Basic IT/Digital Literacy and Financial Literacy for Women. The first event will be a pilot one in Navi Mumbai or Goa. We expect that we will be able to duplicate the event in other areas with the goal of doing a National event in October 2012/Spring 2013 This will be made into a FreeToolkit licenced under CC that we can share with any community that would like to duplicate this effort.
Community Support	Several companies and individuals have already come forward with concrete offers to support the idea. There is a special interest from Women NRIs, Universities and State Departments of Economics Development to do events in the USA with the Indian diaspora promoting Digital Literacy. The India Club of the World Bank/Fund have offered to host a launch event, and The Gandhi Centre in Washington DC have offered their space for Photo Exhibition on women of India. Details are being worked out. Is there one person in this world whose life in some way has NOT been impacted by a woman? This initiative is not for women by women. We invite all to participate. Collaboration and involvement by the men in our society is equally important. This site will provide a space for all to recognize and pay tribute to the women in their lives who have made a difference. For the younger generation we hope to inspire them all to overcome gender differences and look at women in their lives in a new positive light.
WOI Friends	We invite all Friends of women of India, to participate in this initiative. You don’t have to be a woman and you don’t have to be an Indian to support us.
Contact	Harriet Vidyasagar Founder: Women of India dot Net This is a personal mission inspired by the women in my family (My mother and my grand-mother, my sister, my daughters.) which I hope others will share. “It’s not what I bring…But what I take away …”from this community of women world-wide that has sustained us all. http://www.womenofindia.net/tribute.htm The Women of India Foundation is being set up and our First Board being constituted. We intend to salute women while they live and not after they have left. www.womenofindiafoundation.org USA: 1-301-649-2240 1-240-350-6108 1-301-442-8991 INDIA: 91-9901166276 womenofindia@gmail.com