A Celebration of Women™

is elated to Celebrate the Life of this woman leader, film maker for social justice for all women, with a focus on the human rights for Women in Pakistan.

 
 
 

WOMAN of ACTION™

 
 

 

Khalida Brohi

She’s a Women’s Activist and the founder of the Sughar Empowerment Society of Pakistan, dedicated to preserving Pakistan’s history – (“Sughar” means “skilled and confident woman”)

 
 
 
 

Khalida Brohi is a 24-year old Entrepreneur and Women Rights activist from the Balochistan province of Pakistan.

She is the Founder of social enterprise Sughar, Khalida is dedicated towards providing tribal and rural women in Pakistan with education and opportunities to unleash their skills and potential and enable them to become local entrepreneurs. A passionate advocate for women’s rights, Khalida has addressed numerous global forums, receiving recognition from the likes of talk show host Oprah Winfrey and CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour and the former American President Bill Clinton.

Sughar is a non profit social enterprise organization based in Pakistan. Operating in the most tribal and rural areas of Pakistan, Sughar provides socio-economic opportunities and empowerment to women by giving them trainings, resources and opportunities for to use grow as leaders within their communities. Sughar strategically engages tribal men in the activities by creating peer to peer education platforms, trainings for men and even cricket tournaments to bring them together.

With the successful take off of Sughar, Khalida plans for the next 10 years to change the lives of 1 million women in Pakistan. Khalida has been named among NewsWeeks 25 under 25 Women of Impact as well NewsWeeks list of 100 Women Who Matter in Pakistan , Awarded Woman of Impact Award by Women in the World Foundation and various other awards for her young leadership and determination.

Along with her roles as Social Entrepreneur and Activist, she is the sister of 8 siblings and a practicing Sufi.

The 15th of Feb 2012 marked a significant day in the Fashion Industry of Pakistan as Pakistan’s first ever Rural Women Brand called Sughar was launched by Rural Women from Sindh and Balochistan facilitated by Sughar Empowerment Society A national nonprofit in Pakistan.

Sughar Empowerment society is a social enterprise which operates in more than 20 villages in Sindh and Balochistan provinces of Pakistan is aimed at ending the negative customs of exchange marriages, child marriages, honour killings by promoting the beautiful traditions and providing socio-economic empowerment to women in tribal communities of Pakistan.

After having been operating in Balochistan for a few years Sughar is recently supported by International Labour Organization (ILO) to scale in Sindh where Sughar under its innovative strategy establishes Women Centers in each village offering a 6 month course to tribal women. The course involves value-adding the traditional embroidery and provides basic education and literacy skills. It raises awareness of rural women on their equal status and rights. Each course offers a minimum loan to each woman after graduating to initiate Primary Production Units at their homes thus promoting women entrepreneurship which greatly influences their power to ownership and decision making and hence changes their status in the society.

This Fashion Show was part of the Sughar’s strategy to launch Pakistan’s first ever Rural Women Brand named Sughar (English Translation: Skilled and Confident Woman) under the Sughar Women Program starting via an exhibition of the products which included stylish Hand Clutches, hand bags, and traditional-cum modern dresses from Sindh and Balochistan. The fashionable and fabulously designed products were the source of attraction to many who were amazed at the talent and skills of rural women, some of whom were present at the event enjoying each compliment and talking happily. READ MORE

Sughar’s program’s are stated below.

1. Sughar Women Program

​At Sughar Women Program we aim to create a society where women are not killed for honor, but are honored and given equal status!
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We do that by creating women learning and skills centers in each village where women are providing a 6 months course cycle on self awareness, life skills, basic education, enterprise development and value-addition of traditional embroidery into fashion products.
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The women graduates of these centers at the end are provided a small loan to start their own businesses and connected to local and international markets to help generate a sustainable income source for them!

The ownership and income generation enables women new decision making roles widely effecting their own perceptions towards themselves.

2. Land Rights and Food Security

​Women in Pakistan, specially trible women lack ownership rights to anything at all. From property rights to even the smallest item in the house is declared to be of male property as he is the elder/leader of the house.
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Sughar changes this perception by providing women an access and ownership to something which is extremely bigger in terms to changing perceptions of women itself towards themselves.
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Sughar works with the local communities, government, media, and other departments to enable women to purchase, receive land property.

These women landowners are then provided trainings on innovative ideas of farming and income generation! ​
3. Climate Change and DRR

​With growing impacts of climate change in Pakistan women are the most effected. There ability to cope with growing extreme weathers and changing livelihood patterns is slowly dying due to the issue being very new to the tribal communities.
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Sughar works with local communities to raise mass awareness on climate change as well as involve men and women in bringing innovative ideas to mitigate as well as adapt to certain things.
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From providing alternative livelihood options to helping create coping mechanisms for the growing natural disasters, Sughar provides a platform for rural communities especially women to stand strong and united in the face of Climate Change.

Coming from a small village in Balochistan part of Pakistan, Khalida Brohi often likes to refer to herself as the village girl at Large. Educated in Karachi but taken back to her tribal setups through unfortunate incidents Khalida chose to stand against the custom of Honor Killings at the age of 16 by launching various initiatives and recently establishing the setup of Sughar Empowerment Society.

Khalida’s believes that a society can be established where women are not killed for honor but are honored and given equal status!

This belief has taken her so far as to bring innovative ways to engage women in learning processes, to mobilize tribal men to find result-
based and collective strategies to fight centuries old customs and provide women the resources to grow wings.
 
Khalida Brohi is here at 23 years of age with already 6 years of great experience in Human Rights Activism and Social Entrepreneurship. Starting her career at the fragile age of 16, she stood up to fight the custom of Honor Killings in her community, later running the campaign “Wake Up” against honor killing and her current Program called Sughar Women Program. Khalida has been awarded the Young Champion Award by University of Singapore, The Unreasonable Institute Fellowship Award, The YouthActionNet Fellowship Award and Foundation for Young Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship Award.

About TEDx

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations).

 

 
FIND KHALIDA HERE:

Khalida Brohi – Pakistan | LinkedIn

Sughar – Women With Wings | Facebook

Khalida Brohi (@KhalidaBrohi) on Twitter

Khalida Brohi, 25 – Forbes.com

Sughar Empowerment Society – Blogspot

 

 
 
 
 
 

A Celebration of Women™

welcomes this visionary into our global Alumni with open arms, looking forward to future collaborations in bettering the lives of all women and children.

 

 

Brava Khalida!