Market-based requirements: Women Development Centre to introduce new skill modules

PESHAWAR: The Women Business Development Centre will introduce new skill modules for training keeping in view the latest market-based requirements in training.

“This has been decided so that beneficiaries could be equipped with the art of doing business from homes by introducing products on e-businesses platforms,” said the newly nominated Managing Director (MD) of the centre, Malik Riaz Awan, while speaking at a function.

“The Women Business Development Centre will continue its journey of extending support and cooperation to needy women for their empowerment through imparting state-of-the-art skill training to them,” he said after taking over the charge.

The new MD expressed the resolve to continue the work with the same pace and spirit with which the institute was established to equip needy women with the latest vocational skills.He said the centre was a philanthropic initiative taken by a prominent political figure, renowned businesswoman, social activist and Pakistan’s first woman federal minister, the late Begum Kulsoom Saifullah Khan.

“It was established at Hayatabad over 30 years back by Begum Kulsoom Saifullah Khan in collaboration with the then provincial government which had provided a building for skill training”, he explained to reporters.

He said since its establishment, the centre had extended help to thousands of women including orphan girls, widows, and poor girl students in learning different skills and starting up businesses. It imparts vocational training in different skills including stitching, embroidery, handcrafts, makeup, cooking, painting etc.

Deserving women from across the province are benefitting from the initiative taken by Kulsoom Saifullah Khan who was also a founding member of the All Pakistan Women’s Association, Riaz Awan added.

Efforts would also be made for developing linkages between skillful women and micro banking officials for the small-scale loans to start businesses, he added. “It is an exclusive facility for needy women, providing a secure and hassle-free learning environment”, he said.

Women from diverse backgrounds could gain benefit from the centre which was established with the sole objective of extending help to needy women and empowering them by providing them with different skills, he added.