Women’s centre focuses on empowerment
After
long planning and much prayer, Mahila Chetna Kendra, the Notre Dame Women's
Centre in Patna, India was dedicated on January
4, 2003. The centre provides residential programs for the training and empowerment
of women and girls.
The centre’s symbol portrays the reality that women working together
experience personal empowerment and transmit this empowerment to other
women.
Most workshops are five-day residential sessions addressing a specific
issue of concern for women. Some of the sessions have been Gender Sensitisation,
Self Awareness and Confidence Building, Law and Legal Rights, Leadership
Training for Adolescent Girls, Microcredit Enterprise in the Empowerment
of Women, and Training for Leadership and Community Health with a Gender
Perspective.
The centre’s first session was a two-day workshop for 24 women who
have survived rape, domestic abuse, divorce and prostitution. Our hearts
went out to them as we listened to their stories of horror, pain and
courage. The centre provided education about legal assistance and connection
to women's
support groups. Most of all, we offered them healing and acceptance,
which they appreciated very much.
