dhaani "If you can't see it, you can't be it" - Amneh Shaikh Farooqui - Episode 66
Our guest today is Amneh Shaikh-Farooqui, who is a management-consulting professional and gender specialist with fourteen years of experience in economic development, poverty reduction, environment and health initiatives. Amneh supports and helps lead a not-for-profit organization called the Entrepreneurship and Community Development Institute (www.ecdipakistan.org) which specialises in microenterprise, technical skills development and value chain development programmes focused on women and young people in Pakistan. ECDI employs traditional skills in craft, handwork and agriculture as a means of lifting marginalised artisan, rural producer, farmer and slum-dwelling urban communities out of poverty and market development approaches in a range sectors such as dairy, seedlings etc to create livelihood and employment opportunities.
She also cofounded and runs a social enterprise called Polly and Other Stories (www.pollyandotherstories.com), an ecommerce initiative that helps develop and bring to market carefully made artisanal products, created by small producers or enterprises in their homes or in remote villages that were excluded from mainstream markets, thereby bridging the gap for talented craftswomen and craftsmen who had been unable to benefit from the increased demand for beautiful, authentic, and handmade items. Polly and Other Stories was a finalist in the global MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge in 2019.
Amneh thrives on vision-casting and is passionate about ideas that can help transform development industry practices to support local economies and educate and empower individuals and small enterprises. She was a founding curatorial member for the Women of World festival, Karachi and leading force behind the festival in Karachi since January 2016. Amneh is a seasoned public speaker and has presented at conferences across Pakistan including most recently at Pepsi’s TEDx style With Purpose event, the World Bank’s Digital Youth Summit and at the School of Tomorrow’s Leadership Conference. She was the keynote speaker at Making Futures by the Plymouth College of Arts in the UK in September 2019.
Amneh has recently authored Fearless: Stories of Amazing Women from Pakistan, a book for children and young adults that chronicles the lives of 50 incredible women from Pakistan being published by Penguin India over the summer. Striking, bold illustrations accompany powerful narration that highlights the contributions of notable women and girls from across the fields of science and technology, arts, politics, law, activism and sports. Fearless allows South Asian children to discover real-life women and girls who are changing the narrative and paving the way for others and allows them to dream big through the daring deeds of these incredible women from across different sectors, geographies, and ages in Pakistan.
In this podcast we talk about :
- Fearless the book - And the concurrent theme
- The importance of intention for anything and everything
- Culture & Religion
- Women & Economic development
- Awareness & Education
Amneh's Social Media Handles
Instagram & Facebook : @pollyandotherstories & @fearlessthebookpk
Linkedin : @amnehshaikhfarooqui