Rawalpindi : Elections for the office bearers of the Association of Business Professional and Agricultural Women (ABP&AW) were held here on Saturday at Rawalpindi Gymkhana where the members actively participated with great enthusiasm.
The office bearers who were elected by the members were President-Tahmeena Malik, Vice President I-Parveen Khan, Vice President -II -Najma Shahid, General Secretary – Asma Naveed, Treasurer- Suraiya Jabeen, Public Relations Officer-Maheen Malik while the executive members would be co-opted at a later date. Founding member and National President ABP&AW Shameem Kazmi, founding members Razia Zuberi and Narjis Zaidi were also present on the occasion.
"Since the association’s inception, we are working towards women’s empowerment and our organization is the first one to recognize Agricultural women as working women and started empowering them by providing them short loans. " said Shameem Kazmi National President, ABP&AW while speaking to the large number of members at the meeting. “Our struggle is unique as it is not international donor driven or donor-dependent, but the Association generates its funds through its members and runs annual programs in accordance with our national and regional needs. We don’t get any dictation from foreign donors instead we have to develop our own indigenous environment and make things work for our local women. We think that there should be Agriculture Utility Stores so that women can buy agriculture products under one roof and start their own businesses,” she said.
Shameem Kazmi lauded the performance of ABP&AW’s Islamabad-Rawalpindi chapter for its exceptional success in micro credit initiatives launched in 1992. Since then the Association has disbursed small loans of Rs 25,000 to hundreds of women and has assisted them in changing their lives by taking bold decisions. The small credit scheme, a one window operation is steered by Tahmeena Malik, President of (ABP&AW) Islamabad-Rawalpindi chapter. Though as a country we are very generous in giving charity but if we organize our charity, things would have been much better. Another issue that we are facing now is the lack of commitment for voluntary work.
Earlier, while speaking at the ceremony, Tahmeena Malik, president ABP&AW said that it is our objective to raise the status of women through economic empowerment. In our opinion, empowerment does not merely mean financial independence in fact it means getting the decision power in the family matters.
