CHITRAL, Dec 6: District Nazim Chitral Maghfirat Shah stressed on result-oriented activities for women development in the district here on Saturday. There are dozens of community development organisations working in the district but their work is hardly tangible.

Addressing a one-day seminar on ‘Activities for Women Development in Chitral’ jointly sponsored by Regional Women Empowerment Project (RWEP) and TMA Chitral, he said that empowerment of women should not be misconceived as disconnection of women from our culture, traditions and the limits defined by our religion.

The district nazim said that the absence of clear vision and lack of coordination between different bodies and the non-cooperative attitude of the community were the reasons for the failure of various organisations. He said that the organisations must restrain their working pattern to the cultural environment so that they win wide acceptability of the community.

The district nazim said that social and cultural changes cannot take place in months or a few years, rather decades were required for the purpose and the activists of the organisations should work within the social norms and abstain from departure from these to avoid criticism.

Maghfirat Shah proposed to form a body named Women Development Forum (WDF) to regulate and coordinate the activities of the various organisations working for the development and empowerment of women. He announced to extend support and patronage to the body and all required resources.

The district nazim said that presently the district government was running 19 centres for the welfare of women by imparting them long duration training on local handicraft and sewing. He said that with the passage of time the nature of training in the centres was also being revised to keep pace with time and to include information technology as well.

Earlier, the project manager of RWEP, Imtiaz Ahmed, and Tehsil Nazim Sartaj Ahmed Khan said that the seminar was an attempt to bring all the organisations working for women development on one platform.

The participants presented a briefing about their respective organisations explaining its achievements and challenges.

Miss Razia of Agha Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) said that her organisation was presumably the first organisation in the area which had taken the task of women development in almost all the sectors of development since 1983.