Kerala Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan announced the functional launch of Kozhikode campus of the Gender Park. He hailed it as a model for the entire world, reported The Hindu.
Pinarayi also declared to open a gender museum, gender library, convention centre and an amphitheatre. These will form the first phase of the pioneering project aimed at boosting gender equality in the subcontinent.
The CM also laid the foundation stone for an International Women’s Trade and Research Centre (iWTC). It will provide a secure and sustained ecosystem for women entrepreneurs. He also unveiled a model of the multi-storied complex and a space for women to market products.
A special purpose project, the Gender Park was launched in 2013. Its Vellimadukunnu campus in Kozhikode was inaugurated in 2016 by the then President of India Pranab Mukherjee. However, the ambitious project didn’t take off as expected due to technical reasons.
This Saturday, the second International Conference on Gender Equality concluded at the Gender Park campus, which was a 16-session hybrid summit. It was organized by the Department of Women and Child Development in association with UN Women, a body of the UN.
KK Shylaja, who is the minister of Health, Social Justice, Women and Child Development, chaired the functional launch. Shylaja said that the State Government would bring out a policy to promote social entrepreneurship among women and transgender individuals, and that the deliberations at ICGE-II were poised to make their way into a policy framework,
Nishtha Satyam, Deputy Country Reprsentative of UN Women (MCO – India, Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka) hailed the opening of the Gender Park campus as a historic step towards the empowerment of women and transgender people.
The upcoming iWTC will include a women’s-only startup incubation centre. It is claimed to be the world’s first-of-its-kind. iWTC will also host a business facilitator, space for rent and retail trade, a conference centre, performing arts centre, space for sustainable development, women’s health and welfare centre and residential facilities for parents and children of women workers at the Gender Park.
