Prerana Langa, CEO, YES Foundation
We, at YES FOUNDATION strongly believe that women are powerful catalysts for transforming society and ensuring sustainable development. A vast majority of women in the country continue to be hindered due to entrenched social norms and disparities. I feel that media plays a transformative and pivotal role in challenging gender norms and creating an enabling environment to accelerate women’s empowerment.
Our flagship program, YES! i am the CHANGE (YIAC) is a mindset transformation program that adopts a non-sermonising approach to raise awareness on social issues and harnesses media to break gender stereotypes. It features a 101-Hour Social Filmmaking Challenge where participants make 3-min short films on social causes. Topics given as part of the Challenge include causes like women empowerment, gender equality etc and ensure that participants, especially men are sensitised on an experiential level and learn to look at social issues from a woman’s perspective leading to youth engagement with women issues. YIAC enables women participation and provides access to self-expression and decision making through new technologies of media and communication. We conduct screenings of YIAC films for schools and colleges across the country to sensitise youth on issues related to women. YES FOUNDATION also conducts workshops to promote responsible consumption of media where majority of the portion focuses on gender and its representation in media.
My message to women on International Women’s Day is to dream big, love what you do, work hard and sky is definitely not the limit. But, most importantly believe in yourself and your potential to excel!
