Latha Sundaram on a mission to empower women

Coimbatore-based social activist Latha Sundaram seems to be going places. The managing trustee of Aram Foundation and Charitable Trust has added yet another feather to her cap by getting nominated by the Ministry for Women and Child Development as an advocate of Nari Shakthi award. Interestingly, Latha had bagged the Women Achievers Award by the Ministry of Women & Child Development for her contribution to “Access to justice and protection of women and their rights” in 2016.
Talking about the new honour, an excited Latha says, “I am extremely glad that I have been nominated as an advocate and am thankful to the video released by the Union Ministry recognizing my work. This campaign has been conceptualized to highlight the exceptional achievement of women and how women have broken the glass ceiling so that more women can come to the fore. The award also recognizes unsung heroes among women and their contribution to the society.”’

Latha Sundaram has been working on 16 different projects as part of her NGO. “Some of the projects include safe touch awareness, self-defense, child care response center, smart class help, active citizenship training, and career intentionality for women as a part of which we are training school students from 8th to 12th standard. We have started a new project called aero and astro club for science beneficiaries. The programme is to aid science innovation and invention and to promote children to take the path less trodden. We are also actively involved in Swacch Bharath campaign and counselling and guidance programmes in corporation schools.”

She adds that the campaign have been showing results too in the region. “These welfare measures have prevented a number of girl children from dropping out from school and child marriage. When we found that lots of girls could not even buy sanitary napkins, we started distributing biodegradable napkins to them free of cost. This was one of the main reasons for absenteeism. We will also be educating around 10,000 girls on menstrual hygiene starting this academic year and why they should avoid using cloth, thus creating awareness on the health issues. These are all aspects we would work on to empower women. The idea is to bring out the best in them and help them be the women they want to be.”