Chandigarh, December 8: Today, at the concluding day of three day National Girls Youth Peace Camp, at Carmel Convent School, a unique campaign for girls and women friendly‘SAFE PUBLIC SPACES CHANDIGARH’ launched in presence of Smt. Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee-the granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi. Ms. Caroline Rowett, British Deputy High Commissioner, Presided over the ceremony. This initiative was jointly organized by the Peace Club of Carmel Convent School, Yuvsatta-NGO, Chandigarh Institute of Hotel Management-CIHM, National Foundation for Communal Harmony under Government of India and Global Peace Foundation, USA.

Sharing information about the initiative Mr. Pramod Sharma, founder of Yuvsattasaid today in front of Smt. Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, two prominent office bearers of Chandigarh Beopar Mandal namely Mr. Sanjeev Chadha General Secretary and Mr. Sushil Bansal, Secretary, Mr. Vishal Kalia, Principal of CIHM42, along with three representatives of Citizens’ Association, Sector 21 led by its Senior Vice President prof. Ajit Singh Bhatia, S. Rajan Pall Singh, Secretary RWA sector 21 and Sh. Pradeep Bhatia, gave an assurance that their association/institution will ensure that there will be zero tolerance for any girls or women rights violations. Their members/staff commit from today onwards they will do their best to provide safe, secure public spaces to all girls and women of the city, be it markets, parks or any other places in their area/campus.

Appreciating the initiative Ms. Caroline Rowett, British Deputy High Commissioner said that imagine a new world—one created by bold young women, coming together to decide their own futures and shaping the decisions that affect not only their lives, but their communities, their societies, and the world. She supports women and girl’s human rights and movements. She believes that strengthening young women’s leadership is critical to the sustainability and resiliency of women’s movements and long-term social transformation.

She said that todays ‘Chandigarh Citizens Initiative of Girls and Women Friendly City-the SDG 5 Compatible Chandigarh 2030 Campaign’ is really exemplary and other cities and countries can learn so much from the experiments here. She wished success to the campaign and lent her support to inspire young students to become ‘Agents of Change’.