CIFAL Bengaluru Contributing to Empower Women
10 March 2017, Bengaluru, India – The Sustainable Development Goal 3 calls for ensuring health and well being for all, at every stage of life. Contributing to advancing the health of women, children and adolescents is certainly a priority for UNITAR’s affiliated training centre in India, CIFAL Bengaluru.
CIFAL Bengaluru hosted the workshop “SHE (Strong, Healthy, Elegant) – An event to celebrate women” with the objective of empowering women in Bengaluru through education and awareness.
The workshop included sessions to educate women and raise awareness around three main topics: waste segregation at source, sustainable menstruation and breast cancer awareness. Fifty women from low-income communities participated in the various sessions of the workshop.
To assist women to segregate waste effectively, the workshop included dynamic activities on how to implement home composting solutions and convert kitchen waste into manure in simple and easy ways. Kitchen waste in communities from Bengaluru contributes 60% to the household waste every day. By helping women to manage waste in-house makes a household less dependent on municipal waste collection, while contributing to a cleaner city.
It is estimated that some 300 million Indian women do not have access to clean menstrual hygiene products. With the aim of contributing to improve the quality of life of women residing in low-income neighborhoods, the workshop raised awareness around menstrual hygiene among girls and women, while providing them with hygiene products.
Globally, there are about 1.38 million new cases and 458,000 deaths from breast cancer each year (IARC Globocan, 2008). Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women in developed and developing countries worldwide. Early detection of the disease remains the cornerstone of breast cancer control. Through this workshop and other similar activities, CIFAL Bengaluru aims to increase knowledge on the causes of breast cancer and to raise awareness of early signs and symptoms of breast cancer.
The workshop was delivered in English, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi and it was successfully done in partnership with Sukhibhava and with Stonesoup for Sustainable Living.
Photos: Participants of the workshop