March is for Women. And this was a March for Women. The event industry’s apex body Events & Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) through its social vertical We Care organized a special event titled ‘March for Women’ at the FICCI Auditorium, New Delhi. This event was put together to collectively educate, empower and celebrate the spirit of womanhood and its immense contribution in sharing the events industry of the country.
The event brought in recognized and renowned faces from government dignitaries, decision makers, Industry Stakeholders, legal and media representatives. It began with a Key Note session by Ms. Rekha Sharma, Chairperson for the National Commission for Women who addressed everyone on Equity and Empowerment of women in the society. This was followed by another power packed talk on “The Glass Half Full” by Ms. Jyotika Kalra, Member, National Human Rights Commission that cited certain exemplary instances where women proved to be more powerful than men.
Talking about Women’s safety at their respective workplaces, Ms. Nisha Narayanan, COO & Director, Red FM & Magic FM, highlighted key issues and precautions which are usually considered important for organizations to keep in mind. She explained the extensive need of complying with the workplace ethics.
Another important aspect of the event was the Panel Discussion revolving around a very important and impactful issue, titled, NO means NO and is not a prelude to romance and love. Speaking on this was our fearless cop, Ms. Monika Bhardwaj, DCP Crime Branch along with Ms. Geeta Luthra, Senior Advocate, Ms. Jaya Goyal, SHLC Advocate, SushmaGaikwad, Co-Founder, Ice Global and Wizcraft MIME and Mr. Roshan Abbas, President EEMA & Managing Director,VMYLR, who also moderated this entire segment. This segment was concluded with some meaningful and life changing stories from Kubra Sait, Actress and Sona Mohapatra, Songstress, Producer & Changemaker in the storytelling session.
Amidst this, We Care announced the launch of its most awaited ‘We Care Women Mentorship’ Program. This structured program facilitates and encourages professionals to train under some of the best mentors from the event and experiential industry. The program was launched with an stellar line-up of mentors that included, Roshan Abbas, President EEMA, Sabbas Joseph, Co-Founder-Director at WizcraftInternational Entertainment Pvt Ltd., Geetika Ganju Dhar – Anchor, Moderator & Inspirational Speaker, Sushma Gaikwad – Co-Founder, Ice Global & Wizcraft MIME, Manika Garg – VP – E-Factor Entertainment Pvt Ltd. and Sanjoy K Roy – Managing Director, Teamwork Arts Pvt Ltd. The mentorship program intends on encouraging women to explore broader opportunities in the industry and groom them for leadership roles. The mentor-mentee matching initiative will begin from May 2021, with applications which open on the 1stApril, 2021, for mentees.
The evening was then concluded with the recognition and felicitation of ‘EEMA Shaktis’, a title acknowledged to the women leaders and employees from the EEMA member agencies. Each nominated woman was celebrated as ‘EEMA Shakti’ and collectively, they were appreciated with Digital certificates for their tremendous and impactful contribution to the organizations.
Roshan Abbas, President, EEMA, said, “With such a stellar turnout of speakers we were able to turn the spotlight on We Care and the power of women. The Shakti of EEMA was on display thanks to the efforts of the We Care Team led by Poonam Lal Chairperson, We Care, Aarti Mattoo, Vice President West and Prerana Saxena, Vice President North from the NEC.”
Poonam Lal, Chairperson, EEMA We Care, said, “It has been nearly six months since we actively changed the existing, We Care Helpline to a 24*7 Helpline, to extend confidential emotional support during pandemic to people in the experiential industry. Since then we’ve serviced more than 500 calls. The industry has been under tremendous stress. Taking the learnings from the months gone by, we came up with the idea of curating an event that educates, enables and empowers women; and acknowledges and celebrates their success! The #MarchForWomen is about an evolved forward looking initiative that creates exciting new opportunities for women to grow to leadership roles in the industry”
The event was digitally streamed by Platoo. Partners for the event included, Red FM, 93.5 as Media Partners and FICCI Flo Greater50 as Industry Partner. Other partner included Nitin Arora Photography, The Wedding Premier, Grover Audio Visual Services & Yellow Rentals.
About We Care:
We Care was launched on 17th October, 2016 with the agenda to work towards creating a safe and conducive workplace for women in events; and in the longer run, for the wellbeing of the nearly 10 million people who work in this industry. The initiative in its first phase focused on women safety by proposing simple steps like mandatory home drop for girls and women with a trusted aid if the employee was required to work late night; a separate toilet facility for girls for hygiene reasons; and a work from home option for them once or twice a month to help achieve a healthier work life balance. With time it has evolved to working for gender equal work spaces.
While the Helpline number was started as a reach out point for women in distress and facing harassment, today the Helpline receives calls from both men and women seeking advice, guidance, and support to get through this time. Some of these calls have been angry vent outs and some desperate cries for help. The helpline has been doing its best to help them through these times using our resource bank of counsellors. Over time, the spectrum of the calls received needed more comprehensive and specialized assistance. Keeping this mind, a panel of experts that include sexual harassment compliance experts, psychologists, medical experts, legal advisors and more, were approached who now provide counselling and guidance to these requests. With meticulous planning and collaboration, we have successfully built a strong network of experts as our panelists who are available to advise and guide the callers seeking their help.
