TEDx Women 2018 Focuses On Women's Challenges

A TEDx Hyderabad Women 2018 talk was held on Sunday at the Wells Fargo building in Rayadurgam, where three distinguished speakers addressed a 200+ audience.

The speakers included social entrepreneur, gender advocate and Executive Director at VOICE 4 Girls Anusha Bharadwaj; the Founder & CEO of Go North Ventures, an angel investment and advisory firm focused on investing in & mentoring startups, Sanjay Jesrani; and Managing Director and Senior Consultant Obstetrician at Fernandez Hospital Dr Evita Fernandez.

The theme of the meet was "Showing Up" - i. e. to show up at the right place in the right time. The meet was organised by the SAHE (Society for Advancement of Human Endeavour) Foundation, a city-based not-for-profit organization, and had the three speakers speak on three different topic.

Speaking on child birth, Dr Fernandez said that mothers had the right to have a companion in the delivery room, and that women should not be left alone in the delivery room in the company of strangers. She added that birth companions gave a woman the psychological support needed in the labour room, and that women ought to be aware of their rights in child-birth.

Sanjay Jesrani focused on women and financial management. He said that most women had a tendency to feel that managing the finances in the family was not their job and that it was the job of their spouses or the male heads of their family, while in reality women were much better at money management at every level. He opined that more women were needed in finance to check fraud, and that finance was not rocket science and could be picked up with a little effort.

The next speaker, Anusha Bharadwaj, spoke about gender violence. She said that it was an unfortunate social norm that girls and women from good families should not report violence against them, and added that the problem of harrasment or violence could be addressed only when women came forward.

Bharadwaj also focused on an especially vulnerable group, adoloscent girls. She said that India was home to over 113 million adolescent girls, of whom only 30% had studied till Class 10. She also said that almost 50% of adolescent girls were married before the legal age of 18.

Describing VOICE 4 Girls, Bharadwaj said that it was a social enterprise that enabled marginalized adolescent girls in India to reimagine their identities, capabilities and futures.

"We conduct activity-based camps where girls acquire critical knowledge, spoken English and life skills, which in turn increase their confidence and efficacy. VOICE camps act as mentors to the campers. Our goal is to reach enough girls in India to make an impact on the national-level indicators including retention in school, child marriage and health. Through these activities and programs we have impacted more than 14,000 campers in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Uttarakhand," she said.