International university to help empower women

Speaking to The Indian Express, Dr Devasia, lecturer at the Post Graduate Department of the Tirpude College of Social Work, Nagpur, said education plays an important role in empowering women. It is to educate women in various fields of social activities that an International University for Women (Internationale Frauen Universitat-IFU) at Hanover, Germany, has been founded. It will train female researchers and activists (post-graduation studies) to improve upon their knowledge base for doing better work in their respective areas.

Devasia, has the honour of becoming the first Indian to be a member of the faculty of the first and, so-far, gender-specific university of its kind in Europe, a bold innovation by, for and about women. Devasia, who was earlier awarded a senior fellowship by the UGC to research rural women in developmental programmes with special reference to Vidarbha, has also been made the India-co-ordinator of the University’s programme. Having graduated from Kerala University, Devasia had completed her MA in social work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.

The first semester of the new university will be held from July 15 to October 15 in Hanover, Germany. Dr Devasia will be among one of the 150 faculty members who will teach students drawn from women social activists across the world. Around 1000 students have been selected for the university’s first semester.

While one-third of the faculty and students are from Germany, a similar number is from Europe and the US, and the rest from developing countries, she informed. As an international university, IFU is interdisciplinary in scope and methodology of academic work, intercultural, cuts across all political borders as well as ethnic and religious divides.

The six subjects to be taught at the university are: Body (gender studies) – experience, politics, concepts, fertile/infertile body, City – city and gender, Information – Women entering the information age, Migration – Women, identities and systems in transit, Water – Water and life and Work – Women’s work between integration and disintegration, a comparison of Western, middle and Eastern European work culture.

The 150 faculties will teach students their subject of speciality. Classes will be both theoretical and practical. Students are required to choose a single subject of their specialisation. The lecturers are also required to teach a single subject of their choice.

Devasia’s subject is Water. She had earlier presented a paper at the Stockholm Water Symposium in 1998 on ‘Women and water management’. Her research paper entitled `Safe drinking water and its acquisition, Rural women’s participation in water management in Maharashtra’ was published in the International Journal of Water Resources Development. She has authored/co-authored/edited about 10 books dealing with women, development and girl children.

Students at the university will be paid a scholarship of 1400 Deutsche Marks (DM) per month (around Rs 29,000) for the three-month course, while visiting lecturers, including Devasia, will get around 1050 DM per month. There are two Deans, one from Germany and one from Mexico, at the university. Professor Dr Ing. Ayla Neusel is the president of the University.

According to Devasia, the university will encourage interdisciplinary teaching and research by established and young women in order to harness their innovative capacity. It will open up a permanent network to academic women on a worldwide level which will enrich the existing academic structures and the content of their disciplines. The added value of international co-operation with the innovative effects of paradigm changing approaches of women’s research will be very useful. This will help women take up more developmental projects in their areas

The west believe that technology is the answer to all the ills plaguing the world. But the developing world has its own socio-economic problems that technology alone can never solve. Women, when empowered, can bring about great changes in the existing social structures. Perhaps a humane approach by trained women social activists could provide the answer to the vexed problems of the developing nations, says Devasia.