International Women’s Day | Conversations@Jazz

On the occasion of International Women’s Day,  Head of Corporate Communications & Sustainability at Jazz, Aisha Sarwari conducted a special webinar where she was joined by a panel of diverse women along with Aamir Ibrahim, the CEO of Jazz. The panel included Noor Jehan, an aspiring poet and student, Fatima Mazhar, the founder of Dukaan.pk, and Alia Zafar, the group head of HR at Bank of Punjab and a board member at Pakistan Cricket Board. As the theme of this International Women’s Day was #ChooseToChallenge, the panel discussed the different challenges that they have faced in their lives, how they overcame them, and how digitization is or could help them in their struggle.

As Noor Jehan is a young woman growing up in Pakistani society, she highlighted the fact that a woman in Pakistan has to self-learn and find her way to the top all by herself. According to her, this is because currently Pakistan does not provide the required guidance and resources, and proper learnings required for a young girl are also discouraged. Noor believes that studying Urdu and Post-Colonial Literature is a solution to the issues that she highlighted, and digitization has made it easier more than ever to access and understand the said literature.

Talking about the importance of digitization, Aamir Ibrahim praised the ability of Fintech to bridge the gap between the genders that currently exists in the financial and banking sector. Along with this, he also believes that the internet has a lot of power to bring awareness to numerous gender issues and encourages them to take action.

Making the best use of eCommerce and digitization, Fatima Mazhar through her initiative Dukaan.pk is working towards empowering women by providing them with a platform to sell their products online while also providing them with small loans.

All of the members from the panel highlighted the importance of digitization to help aid solve gender issues. Society should take advantage of the digital world and provide solutions that promote inclusivity and help empower those struggling.