awards
Pakistani women have been making waves in every field; be it education, medicine, engineering etc. And it is surely an honour for the entire nation when our women win an international award for their efforts especially related to the health sector. Well, recently, Fayeeza Naqvi, Chairman of the Aman Foundation won the Global Humanitarian Award for Women’s and Children’s Health. This award was announced by The Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Gates Institute).
Fayeeza Naqvi is one of the four winners of the first-ever Global Humanitarian Award for Women’s and Children’s Health. This award, conferred for the first time at the 2016 International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) in Nusa Dua, Indonesia, recognizes individuals who, with great vision and leadership, have invested private wealth to advance reproductive, maternal, neo-natal and child health, especially family planning, at a global level.
The award is a tribute to the transformative work of the Aman Foundation in the area of women and children’s health, exemplified by innovative programmes developed by ‘Aman Health’ and its dedicated family planning programme, ‘Sukh’. This programme has been launched as a concrete outcome for the London Summit on Family Planning. ‘Sukh’ covers a population of one million in some of the most underserved and challenging areas of Karachi. It has already impacted more than 77,000 married women of reproductive age (MWRAs), creating more than 4000 modern contraceptive users. It has also led to the establishment of two training centres and 12 teacher-training programmes across schools in the local community. The initiative has also partnered with the local government to ensure long-term sustainability within the community.
Commenting on the award, Fayeeza said, “The Foundation is dedicated to promote the centrality of family and dignity of life for all. The ‘Sukh’ programme has been created to foster gender equality, by giving women the power of choice. We believe that healthy, educated and empowered women build strong families and productive communities. The foundation aims to develop programmes that convene international partners to bring best practise and expertise in collaboration with local government to ensure scalable and sustainable impact. I am honoured to accept this award on behalf of the Aman Foundation and look forward to working closely with my fellow awardees in furthering the cause of family planning and maternal health.”
With achievements like these we are hopeful that our women will keep making us proud in the future as well.
The second time round
She won an Emmy Award for her documentary - ‘Pakistan: Children of the Taliban’ - in 2010 and an Academy Award for her documentary - ‘Saving Face’ - in 2012. She is the first Pakistani ever to win an Oscar and she is also the creative director of Pakistan’s first animated feature film ‘#3 Bahadur’. Yes, we are talking about Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. In 2012, Time Magazine included Sharmeen in their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. She has also been awarded the Hilal-e-Imtiaz by the government of Pakistan - the country’s second highest civilian honor.
Well, this is not all! Recently, she once again made the country proud by bagging Pakistan’s second Academy Award (Oscar) for ‘A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness’ in the Best Documentary (Short) Category at the 88th Academy Awards.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is one of only 11 female directors who have ever won an Oscar for a non-fiction film and the only Pakistani to win two Academy Awards. This documentary is based on the practice of honor killing in Pakistan.
Upon receiving the award, Obaid-Chinoy said, “This is what happens when determined women get together. From Saba, the girl in my film who remarkably survived honor killing and shared her story, to Sheila Nevins, Lisa Heller from HBO and Tina Brown who supported me from day one. To the men who champion women, like Geof Bartz who has edited the film to Asad Faruqi, to my friend Ziad who brought this film to the government, to all the brave men out there like my father and husband who push women to go to school and work and who want a more just society for women! Last week, our Pakistani Prime Minister has said that he will change the law of honor killing after watching this film. That is the power of film!”
In order to bring about a change and highlight the countless victims of honor crimes in Pakistan, Obaid-Chinoy has launched an Anti-Honor Killing Campaign, The Price of Forgiveness. With this campaign, Obaid-Chinoy has mobilized civil society, key stakeholders and opinion leaders to push the Parliament to pass the Anti-Honor Killings Laws (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2014. The very objective of the bill is to make sure honor killings are stopped immediately, by addressing the lack of attention and implementation of existing laws in an effective manner. The bill will also ensure that victims of honor crimes can no longer ‘forgive’ their perpetrators, which has been exemplified by the film. With the launch of this campaign, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif has pledged his support for the campaign and to amending the law.
- M.S
