The international community is celebrating women’s day today in order to bring equality, justice, and empowerment for women and to eradicate disparity that exists based on gender identity. Chitral is a region where women have been living in a set up that did not allow them to be a part of the daily activities that men would be able to engage in, but most importantly, women have been ignored in the economic cycle for long. With the changing time, women are getting education and it is indeed good news that Chitral has a high literacy rate for women than many other parts of Pakistan. Nevertheless, the women of Chitral are still limited to a few professions like nurses, teachers, doctors and a few government jobs. This is also true for a lot of men, but women have many more hurdles to opt for a more challenging job or more so if they want to come up with their own initiative.

It is a fact that better societies can only come into being if there is inclusion of women in every aspect of life. The world has changed and so has the economy of smaller regions like Chitral. There was a time when houses would run for as low as a few thousand rupees, but nowadays the expenses have really rocketed and everyone in the house has to contribute to a quality of life. Many women have the capacity to work in all walks of life and a lot of them want to start their own businesses. There are a few cases of successful women who have taken care of their families by running a business from home or by setting up small businesses in the villages. The point is that it is possible and what is needed from society is to let women follow their dreams. This will not only serve the ladies live a better life, but they can also be a very significant part of the family in contributing towards giving education to others, paying for the health of a family member and more importantly contribute to the communities they live in.

The theme of the International Women Day is “An equal world is an enabled world” and we, at LocalWocal try our best to give the opportunity to women from Chitral to be enabled economically. We are glad to share that more than seventy percent of the local products that we have bought from the producers come from women and we have helped them get a great benefit for their work. This is just a start, and we hope to create a lot more opportunities and possibilities for women to work from home. It is about time that we value all the amazing work that women have been creating for free all this time and compensate them for their creativity and dedication and help them stand on their feet and get economic independence. We are ready for this challenge and we invite everyone in Chitral to help us achieve this goal by encouraging the women in your family to utilise their potentials to create products which we will help them get to a wider market, because after all; an empowered and independent woman guarantees a prosperous and an educated society.