We celebrated IWD on 8th March 2025 at Vivekananda Wisdom Mission School, Mankundu. The occasion was inaugurated at 11.00a.m. by Piyali Basak, the well-known summiteer of Mt. Everest and 5 other highest peaks in sequence in term of height. The theme of International Women’s Day 2025 was “Accelerate Action”. Our guest speakers advocated the theme efficiently. More than 50 women attended the seminar.

Tapas Kumar Sur greeted and welcomed everyone to share their ideas to improve the women’s position in our society. The Guests were felicitated with flower bunches, Badges, Mementos. Ms. Piyali Basak offered a sum of Rs.10,000/= as a token of appreciation of her achievement.

Initially our guest speakers communicated their thoughts as follows;

Social Activist Swapna Chowdhury, said “Gender equality is a Right of the women. Fulfilling this right is the best way to face some of the most pressing challenges of our time. The women possess ideas and leadership to solve them. The gender discrimination still holding so many women back and it holds our world back too.” She put the emphasis on holding the hands together for a better future and requested to come out with stronger motivation.

Mitali Mukherjee, Secretary, Mahila Brinda, Durga Puja committee, shared her views on importance of women in the society. She also describes the power of women in our traditional literature referring goddess like Durga and Kali. She emphasised on the role of women in the social development and said the society or country will excel if the women are not respected..

Our most senior member Dr. Achala Dutta said that women should balance between career and family and without the support of the family women can’t achieve success, also mentioned that girls should know their rights to defend themselves and be prepared for any odds that may come in their way.

Ms. Piyali Bask shown videos relating to her expedition and narrated the details of experiences regarding it. She successfully scaled Mt. Everest (8849 M) and other 5 pot peaks of Himalayas. They are called Mt. Lhotse (8516 M) 4th. Highest, Mt. Makalu (8481 M) 5th. Highest, Mt. Dhaulagiri (8167 M) and Mt. Manaslu (8163 M). She said I am a primary school teacher and coming from a lower middle class family, the economic challenges are higher than mountains, so far I have managed by crowd funding. She is going to China on coming 7th. April to climb on Shisapangma and and ho-oyu peaks. She further said I would like go to the K2 Godwins, Naga Parbat, Grasherbrum 1, Grasherbrum 2 and Broad Peak which are in Pakistan. I requested SCI, as it is an international peace organization may help me to obtain permission from Pakistani Govt. to climb those peaks.

In keeping with the Tagline offered by UN for International Women’s Day observation, we have decided to strengthen our women wing. Soon we will have a drive to introduce teenagers and resourceful women in our group so that we can we can organize at least 4 strong activities in a year.

Text written by Tapas Kumar Sur