Celebration of International Women’s Day, 2017
Organizer: WIE Affinity group, IEEE Bangladesh section and BUET WIE Student Branch AG
Venue: ECE Building, BUET
Date: March 18, 2017
WIE AG, IEEE Bangladesh Section and BUET WIE Student Branch jointly hosted ‘Women’s Day Celebration 2017’ in honor of all women working relentlessly to prove themselves and also to inspire female engineering professionals and students to materialize their dreams by overcoming social barriers.
Figure : Group photo
To make this celebration more vivid and alight, Mehnaz Kabir, Group Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, RANGS Group was present as key speaker throughout the event. Mehnaz Kabir started her career at Grameenphone Limited in 2003. She played significant roles as Head of Internal Communications at Grameenphone Limited in 2010, Head of Communications at Ericsson Bangladesh in 2014 and later as Chief Communications Officer at RanksTel Limited in 2016.
The session started with an inspirational video showing the world’s successful women and their courage and strength to fight major downfalls in their lives. The presented video clip intended to motivate every woman to discover and realize her true potential through a self-question: “What on earth am I here for?” It also highlighted the famous quote by Margaret Thatcher, Former Prime Minister of United Kingdom, “You turn [U-turn] if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.”
Figure: Cake Cutting Session
A woman is an epitome of beauty, wisdom and care. In conventional social system, a woman is someone’s daughter, sister, wife or mother in various phases of her life. But surpassing all these identities, she is a person; an individual. The definition of womanhood is no more simply bounded to ‘beauty’ and ‘acquiesce’. That’s why “Be bold for change”- was the theme of International Women’s Day 2017. Now-a-days, a woman is more self-reliant, self-confident and self-conscious about their own rights and responsibilities. But moving ahead in the way of life through ups and downs and facing challenges from both personal and professional life sometimes make life harsh and unfair. On the other hand, male dominated social orthodox creates an invisible barrier between men and women. Climbing up, crossing and breaking this barrier is never an easy task. “When life hits you, hit back harder”- keeping this motto on mind, a woman can conquer whatever hurdle comes in between her life. Mehnaz Kabir talked about all these challenges and shared her stories and experiences from both her personal and corporate life. She also mentioned that it would never be possible to come to this stage of her career without the utmost support of her family. To ensure women empowerment, we must change our traditional concept and perspective and this change has to be started with ourselves.
Figure: Mehnaz Kabir receiving token of appreciation
After the motivational session by Mehnaz Kabir, video message featuring the former WIE BDS volunteers and executive committee members was presented. The two hours’ session ended with cutting cake and group photo-session to celebrate International Women’s Day and to express solidarity with women empowerment.
