All India Womens Conference

Membership of CONGO. Elected as Vice-President

of CONGO for two terms.

The All India Womens Conference (AIWC) is an organisation based in Delhi. It was founded in 1927 by
Margaret Cousins,[1] as an organisation dedicated to upliftment and betterment of women and children. As
well as continuing its original mission, the AIWC has
since diversied into various social and economic activities involving women. Today there are more than 100,000
members[2] in over 500 branches. AIWC is recognized
worldwide as a premier organisation working for womens
development and empowerment.[3]

A national Focal Point for International Network for

Sustainable Energy (INFORSE)[4]
Membership of the World Renewable Energy Network (WREN)[5]
Membership of ENERGIA International Network
on Gender and Energy
Global Village Energy Partnership

Mission

Membership of World Water Partnership [6]

AIWC was registered in 1930 under the Societies Registration Act, XXI of 1860. (No. 558 of 1930) with the
following main objectives:

Aliated member of the International Alliance of

Women[7]
Aliated to the Pan Pacic South-East Asian
Womens Association (PPSEAWA)[8]

To work for a society based on the principle of social

justice, personal integrity and equal rights and opportunities for all.

Aliated to NIMROO Education Centre, Japan

To secure recognition of the inherent right of every

human being to work and to achieve the essentials
of life, which should not be determined by accident
of birth or sex but by planned social distribution.

3 Activities and programmes

Literacy and Education:

To support the claim of every citizen to the right to

enjoy basic civil liberties.

One of the initial main objectives of the AIWC was education of women, and it remains a primary concern to To stand against all separatist tendencies and to proday. The organisations literacy campaign was intensied
mote greater national integration and unity.
in 1996 by initiating non-formal education programmes
To work actively for the general progress and welfare for school drop outs and literacy programmes for adult
[9][10] [11]
of women and children and to help women utilize to woman with craft training through its branches.
the fullest,one of the fundamental rights conferred
on them by the Constitution of India.
The Socio-Economic Programme:

To work for permanent international amity and

AIWC has started programmes for capacity building and
world peace.
skill development by providing nancial support for entrepreneurial endeavours including goods processing and
solar drying.

International level

Micro Credit Program:

AIWC has

Consultative status with the United Nations Microcredit schemes are operated to eradicate poverty
among woman in rural areas. Self-help groups have
(ECOSOC)
been identied for the encouragement of saving among
Membership of UNICEF Executive committee for woman, management of credit, and encouragement for
10 years
small business enterprises.
1

PROJECTS

Health family Welfare and Population Manage- This is a research and reference library for womens studment:
ies that contains numerous books on topics of contemporary interest such as environmental education and literacy programmes, microcredit and micronance trainAIWC is actively involved in organising health camps,
ing, manuals for training on adolescent life skill deawareness programmes, antenatal care and immunizavelopment, HIV/ AIDs prevention and protection traintion programmes though its branches all over the couning, Panchayati raj, adult leadership programs, microtry. AIWC has conducted Training of trainers procredit for poverty reduction, health programs along with
grammes for prevention of and protection from sexually
many others. More than 11000 books including ctransmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS among woman in lowtion, non ction, history, biography, woman issues, and
risk groups for members of its branches. The outreach
legal awareness, etc. &mdash are to be found in the liawareness programme has become an important part of
brary which also has a reading room containing leading
[12]
the overall AIWC health programme.
journals, periodicals and newspapers. The documentation centre has press clippings, reports, articles and pho Rural energy:
tographs on various topics such as women, children, environment, literacy, legislation, violence against woman
AIWC was identied as a Nodal Agency by the Ministry and several others. Resource centre papers, corresponof non conventional energy resources in 1989 to imple- dence reports from various projects seminars etc. perment the Improved Chullah program and biogas devel- taining to AIWC from 1927 are available as well as a poropment program. AIWC conducts programmes on re- trait gallery of photographs of past presidents of AIWC.
newable energy among woman at the grassroots level and
demonstrates how use these technologies to achieve economic self-suciency.
Legislative Reforms:
AIWC has been represented on committees set up for legal reforms and amendments framed for womens welfare. The Legal Cell helps women who are victims of social and domestic violence. Free legal advice is provided
as well as counseling for women in distress. AIWC acts
as a consultant to the National Commission for Women
for legal issues.
Textile printing:
A socio economic project run by AIWC began in 1976 to
train and provide employment for woman and girls from
the lower socio-economic sectors. This program has also
been extended to some branches.
Computer Training Centre:
AIWC started its computer training center in 1996 as a
vocational course for capacity building among women.
Students were prepared for the one year O level diploma
course recognized by DoEACC while the centre has also
been accepted by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) as their centre for degree courses. At
present there are over 350 students attending dierent
computer classes. AIWC branches also run computer
training programmes with a 90% success rate in placement of students in jobs.[13]
Activities MCM Library:

4 Projects
The IGNOU Action Research Pilot project on gender empowerment through green technology has two
programs in operation, one in Trivandrum and the
other in Delhi.
A two day legal awareness programme funded by
the National Commission for Women took place in
September, 2008.
A one day Seminar on the role of women in promoting communal harmony and national integration has been held at AIWC branches in Jammu,
Delhi, Bijnor, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Cuttack and
Bangalore funded by the National Foundation for
Communal Harmony.
A project on plastics recycling with nancial assistance from the Ministry of Environment, Government of Delhi NCT has been allotted to the South
West Delhi Womens Association branch in Delhi.
Machines have been installed at Palam Gaon and
training in their operation is complete.
A project to establish herbals gardens at 100 Schools
across dierent states is in progress supported by the
National Medicinal Plants Board.
Vocational training for computer and beauty culture
has taken place in Rithala Village in collaboration
with North Delhi Power Limited (NDPL).
An AWAIC project for the sensitisation and alternate vocations for women beedi workers is supported
by the World Health Organisation.
An "Ayurveda Treatment and Massage Training
Center has also been set up.

3
One day national consultation on Sexual 6 Past Presidents
Harassment-Strategies for its prevention was
organised in November 2013 by President Bina Some prominent women have remained President of
Jain and member-in-charge legal Jyotika Kalra
AIWC:[14]

Publications

Books:

Maharani Chimnabai Gaekwad 1927

Johan Begum of Bhopal 1928
Dowager Rani of Mandi 1929

Woman with a Mission: Rajkumari Amrit Kaur

Sarojini Naidu 1930

Womens Struggle: History of AIWC 1972-2002,

Aparna Basu, Bharti Roy

Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy 1931

Rainbow in the Dark: Dr. (Mrs.) K. Lakshmi

Raghuramaiah

Lady Vidyagauri Neelkanth 1933

My Reminisences - Renuka Ray

Proles of Laxmi Menon
Reports:

Sarla Ray 1932

Lady Abdul Quadir 1934

Hilla Rustomji Faridoonji 1935
Maharani Setu Parvathibai 1936
Margaret E. Cousins 1937

Report on a Workshop on Project formulation, Management Evaluation

Amrit Kaur 1938

Reports on the National Seminar on the Role of

Young Women in Socio- Economic Development

Shareefah Hamid Ali 1940-41

Conference on Women in Environment: Report

Asian and Pacic Regional Workshop on Women &
Renewable Energy: Report
Asian and Pacic Consultation on NonGovernmental Organizations on Women in
Development: Report
Short Stay Home: Philosophy, Program & Potential
A Report on the Micro credit Summit
Booklets/Pamphlets:

Rani Lakshmibai Rajwade 1939

Rameshwari Nehru 1942

Vijayalakshmi Pandit 1943
Kamladevi Chattopadhyay 1944-45
Hansa Mehta 1946
Dhanwanti Rama Rau 1947
Anasuyabai Kale 1948
Urmila Mehta 1949-50
Hanna Sen 1951-52
Renuka Ray 1953-54

Women Know your rights

Lakshmi N. Menon 1955-58

Nari aur Kanoon

Raksha Saran 1959-60

Training manual on solar dryer

Mithan J. Lam 1961-62

Preparation of projects

Masuma Begum 1963-64

HIV AIDS training manual for trainers

M.S.H.Jhabwala 1965-68

Directory of branches of AIWC

B. Tarabai 1969-70
Lakshmi Raguramaiah 1971-79

Journals:
ROSHNI (a quarterly magazine)

Sarojini Varadappan 1981-85

Ashoka Gupta 1986-90

9
Shobhana Ranade 1991-95
Kunti Paul 1996-98
Kalavati Tripathi 1999-2001
Aparna Basu 2002-2004
Manorma Bawa 2005-2007
Gomathi Nair 2008-2010
Bina Jain 2011-2013

See also
List of womens rights organizations

References

[1] History AIWC website.

[2] Welcome AIWC. Retrieved May 17, 2011.
[3] AIWC Ocial Website
[4] INFORSE- Asia
[5] World Renewable Energy Network - Member Countries
and Corporate Members
[6] NGOs we & others
[7] International Alliance for Women (IAW)
[8] Pan Pacic South-East Asian Womens Association
(PPSEAWA)
[9] ASHA For Education
[10] The Telegraph Tuesday, February 22, 2005
[11] The Telegraph Tuesday, July 05, 2005
[12] NLM Gateway
[13] Education for India
[14] Past Presidents. AIWC: All India Womens Conference.
Retrieved 2014-03-19.

External links
AIWC Ocial Website
IAW
ENERGIA
Pan Pacic South-East Asian Womens Association
International Networking for Sustainable Energy
ECOSOC

EXTERNAL LINKS

10
10.1

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

All India Womens Conference Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_India_Women{}s_Conference?oldid=671581958 Contributors: Edward, Giraedata, Malcolma, SmackBot, Phuzion, Levineps, Cydebot, Ekabhishek, Magioladitis, Mahitgar, Philg88, R'n'B, Arjun024, Randy Kryn, Mlas, Guoguo12, Yobot, AnomieBOT, Mathonius, Patchy1, Moonofthewolf, John of Reading, Shadowofthebat,
Klavierspieler, Gilderien, Snotbot, BG19bot, Meatsgains, Gaduse, AusLondonder and Anonymous: 8

10.2

Images

File:Ambox_important.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Ambox_important.svg License: Public domain Contributors: Own work, based o of Image:Ambox scales.svg Original artist: Dsmurat (talk contribs)
File:Edit-clear.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Edit-clear.svg License: Public domain Contributors: The
Tango! Desktop Project. Original artist:
The people from the Tango! project. And according to the meta-data in the le, specically: Andreas Nilsson, and Jakub Steiner (although
minimally).
File:Question_book-new.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Question_book-new.svg License: Cc-by-sa-3.0
Contributors:
Created from scratch in Adobe Illustrator. Based on Image:Question book.png created by User:Equazcion Original artist:
Tkgd2007

10.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0