KARACHI, Aug 15: Seventy resource centres will be established by the Aurat Foundation all over the country to provide information and training to women councillors so that they could perform their roles effectively.

Over 36,000 women councillors are to benefit from these centres that are to be established under a Rs 62.38 million, three-year project being funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Five regional centres — at Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta — have already been established, and six centres at the district level would also be set up in each region by October under the project entitled An Institutional Framework for Effective Representation of Women Councillors.

Giving details of the project, its Sindh coordinator Shahid Fiaz said that six centres would be established in the province at Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Ghotki, Sanghar, Khairpur and Sukkur within the next few weeks.

He said that the primary focus of these centres would be on granting women access to basic information and resources at the local level by organizing capacity building training sessions. The process would also help in the formation of a country-wide network of women councillors, and their effective representation in mainstream politics.

The centres would have all the relevant information material regarding local government laws, rules and regulations, facts and figures about the relevant districts and the responsibilities and roles of Nazimeen, Naib Nazimeen, councillors and officials of local government.

He said that the centres would also have all information related to women’s rights issues including legal issues, health, sanitation, education and Muslim family laws. A bi-monthly newsletter entitled Roshan Pakistan would also be published. He hoped that women councillors, after receiving training in the next three years, would be in a better position to play their roles in their respective areas.