Skip to main content

The Voice of Bhutanese Mothers

As I type these lines, I am watching a Bhutanese singing show: Drinchen Amai Sungkoed, the voice of Bhutanese mothers. Unlike the earlier Bhutanese reality shows, the current show engages Bhutanese women and is specifically aimed at developing their voice and personality.  

In Bhutan, the concept of women empowerment is fairly new and we have always maintained that we have no gender bias in the country and that both men and women enjoy similar support and opportunity. But today we also spend so much effort and resources to organize conferences that talk about women empowerment.

Drinchen Amai Sungkoed is an appropriate platform for our women, who otherwise end up managing a household. And the program is expected to groom these women while they also demonstrate their talents to the nation. We need to think of it as an opportunity for our mothers to boost their confidence and learn public speaking. This is expected to bring our women national recognition and create more confident leaders.


I am all praises for the organizers. We have to recognize their efforts because such programs will definitely bear fruits in the longer run. It is heartening to see more sponsors supporting such programs, but going by the number of commercial ads that we see, this show has not received as much support, unlike the other past shows.

The ultimate goal of this nation is to create a large pool of women, who can participate in various levels of the political arena. Today we have minimal women representation in the Parliament and local governments. This is a serious concern. And many organizations want to change this scenario.

But I think it is small and simple things like this reality show that will empower our women. It is a singing contest. But more than anything, it is breeding leaders and putting big confidence in them all.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Utpal Academy - Bhutan's first All-girls High School

Academic Block Welcome to Bhutan’s first all-girls school. Isn’t that wonderful news to all our parents? Certainly, as a parent of a one-year old daughter I am excited about the coming of a school exclusively dedicated to the needs of girls. Our girls need special treatment, which we can for sure entrust the responsibility to Utal Academy, Paro. Dinning Hall I really like the name – Utpal – in Buddhist world, Utpal is another name for lotus flower, which is believed to grow from mud and yet blossoms into a beautiful and majestic flower. It stands for purity and many deities are depicted holding flower Utpal, more prominently Jestusn Dolma, the Goddess Tara. Symbolically, it also stands for the transformation of our girls. What an apt name for the school! Hostel Room The Principal’s message posted on the academy’s website promises providing our young women an “opportunity to participate fully in a wide range of extracurricular activities to develop skills and qualities that

System Thinking

System is a collection of interrelated elements that create one complete and unified whole. All components within it constantly interact with each other to achieve a specific purpose.  For example, a car is a highly sophisticated form of a system. Hundreds of different parts work together to make it move in the desired direction, and even if a small part is missing, the car will fail to run.  From the system, I learnt that system thinking is a perspective of things around us, which makes us see how everything is connected to other things. In the above example, it is not just the motor that creates the motion in the car but combined work of all the parts in the vehicle. For example, even if everything works, without an accelerator, the car will not move in the desired speed that we want it to run.    Therefore, system thinking forces us to think about the relationships between things and how they influence the overall system. It makes us see the bigger picture. For example, when we buy

Fighting RCSCE-phobia

Now that the orientation is over, graduates all over Bhutan would be hunting for information and scratching through all our history books. And in absence of readily available information, it is going to be so frustrating for many. There are are aspirants like Tashi.P Ganzin who are already seeking divine intervention- whether to appear or not to.  This is the biggest moment in a graduate’s life – it’s time to learn and relearn so many things about the home and the world. And they need good attention from their parents and relatives, guidance and advice from elders. I am sure all 1300 graduates who attended the NGOP may not appear RCSC Common examination, but we need to inspire and encourage those that brave the odds. Many of my friends are waiting to take the exam of their life – their future will either be made or broken when RCSC declares the results. And my full prayers and support are with them. They are terribly afraid of it to say the least. I heard while there are no prob