Venue: Baker’s Street – Time: 7:00pm
Price: Tickets are priced at £25 per person, includes canapé starters, buffet dinner, selected soft drinks and wine.

Kulveer Singh Ranger – Key Note Speaker
Global City Adviser
Former Adviser to Mayor of London
Former Vice-Chairman of The Conservative Party (Cities)

Marianne Fallon – Sponsor’s Address
Partner, Executive Board Member, UK Head of Corporate Affairs, UK Head of Charities
KPMG

Seema Malhotra MP – Guest Speaker & Q & A Panellist
Member of Parliament for Feltham and Heston

Seema Malhotra MP is Parliamentary Private Secretary (Equalities) to Yvette Cooper , Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, and Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party Backbench BIS Group.

She was elected as the Member of Parliament for Feltham and Heston on 15 December 2011 and was formerly a business and public services advisor. She has worked with Accenture, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and as a freelance consultant. She is founder and Director of the Fabian Women’s Network.

Priti Patel – Guest Speaker & Q & A Panellist
MP, Member of Parliament for Witham

Priti Patel is the first Asian Woman MP in Britain from The Conservative Party. She was elected as the first Member of Parliament for the Witham Constituency in May 2010 and is currently an elected Member of the Conservative Party Board, the 1922 Committee’s Executive and the Public Administration Select Committee. She also chairs the All Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group and is an active member of the Free Enterprise Group.

Cllr Lurline Champagnie OBE – Guest Speaker & Q & A Panellist
Chairman, Harrow West Conservative Association
Councillor Pinner Ward, London Borough of Harrow
Harrow Mayor (2004/5)

Councillor Mrs Champagnie OBE was first elected in May 1986 as Councillor for the Pinner Ward.
Lurline has been a councillor for over 25 years. She was the first black councillor for the London Borough of Harrow and it’s Mayor 2004/2005.

Cllr. Mrs Mimi Harker OBE – Guest Speaker & Q & A Panellist
Mayor of Amersham, Amersham Town Council
Cabinet Member Responsible for Community, Young People, Communications,
Sports & Leisure, Chiltern District Council
Parliamentary Candidate 2005

Councillor Mimi Harker OBE (Conservative) is Mayor of Amersham and Cabinet Member responsible for Community, Communications, Young People, Sport and Leisure at Chiltern District Council.

Mimi has been a district councillor for 12 years, a role she took on after fighting a major community campaign. She is best known for her campaigning to make life better and improve her local area, saving greenbelt, preserving catchment areas and saving post offices. Nationally, she helped create the 12A cinema classification, and has worked on the Cross Party Task Force encouraging women to participate in public life.

Women Empowered thrives because of the support we get from our generous helpers, supporters and friends.
Words can’t express the gratitude we feel. WE would like to say thank you to our supporters.

iSHK Photography Lifestyle Photographer
Sabiha-Hudda-Khaku
info@ishkphotography.com
Tel: 07920525385

For more information, please visit http://www.ishkphotography.com

iSHK Photography by Sabiha Hudda-Khaku (get it, ha!) is an artistic venture where I look for innovative ways to portray the emotion of all in my lens’ view: a baby’s first step, a bride’s first smile, winter’s first snowfall. This is a glimpse of what drives me as a photographer.

It’s the passion, excitement and adventure of capturing the essence of what makes life beautiful. I bring your imagination to life with a flash of flair, a click of crazy and a splash of spirit.

Capturing the details only the bride knows about, the emotion in his eyes as he looks into hers, the joy parents feel with their newborn in their arms. I wouldn’t break out my camera for anything else. Always looking for a new twist on the standard; pushing the boundaries of the norm and never following the crowd.

After all it’s hard to shoot your good side from the back!

Women Empowered (WE) is raising awareness for Enham Trust. For over 90 years Enham Trust has supported adults with physical and learning disability to live the lives they choose Did you know 80% of disabilities are acquired? Disability doesn’t distinguish between wealth or background. For more details visit www.enham.org.uk

For a higher resolution picture, please click on the image.

All images courtesy of ISHK Photography – http://www.facebook.com/ishkphotography

On Thursday 24th January Women Empowered, the social initiative aimed at championing issues for women, held its latest event titled, “Is it a Man’s World?”. The event was to focus on women who have made great strides in politics, which has been regarded as a male dominated arena. The sold out event was sponsored by KMPG and featured Priti Patel MP, Cllr Lurline Champagnie OBE and Cllr Mimi Harker OBE. Seema Malhotra MP, who was due to attend was unfortunately delayed abroad.

The speakers shared their life experiences, obstacles faced and how they had overcome them along with the experiences what had led them into the political world.

Kulveer Ranger, former advisor to The Mayor of London, gave the key note address offering a male perspective to the issues raised.

Marianne Fallon, Partner, Executive Board Member, UK Head of Corporate Affairs & UK Head of Charities at KPMG shared her views on diversity and the need for women in the corporate world. She said that sadly the figures of women in the Parliamentary world were faring better than those in the corporate world at board level and spoke on what KPMG are doing to tackle some of the issues raised on the evening.
Reena Ranger, Mona Remtulla, Priti Patel MP, Cllr Lurline Champagnie, Cllr Mimi Harker, Marianne Fallon, Kulveer Ranger

Reena Ranger, Chairwoman, and Mona Remtulla, co-founder of Women Empowered, welcomed the guests and spoke about how the event had been meant to be about experiences in the political world but recent news & events had raised issues as to why we needed more female representation throughout the civic processes. Getting involved did not necessarily mean becoming a member of parliament but getting involved at any level, from residents associations to boards of governors in schools, from charitable trusts to local government and beyond.

Priti Patel, MP for Witham and the first female Asian MP for the Tory party, who had worked in both the political and corporate world said there were not enough in either. She stated that she was against positive discrimination and quotas particularly since there was a limitless pool of talented women which needed to be tapped into. She also added that women should also help other women. We should not be frightened to challenge social norms, push boundaries and pick ourselves up from failures and move onwards and learn from every challenge and setback.

Cllr. Lurline Champagnie OBE, the first British Caribbean Councillor of Harrow Council, Mayor of Harrow in 2004/2005 and Chairman of Harrow West Conservative Association, gave a passionate speech in which she said that whatever you want you should go for it; one has to be strong and believe in themselves and not consider themselves the weaker sex. She added that there are obstacles in all paths of life and that she had entered politics at a time when there were very few women or people of colour, let alone women of colour. She emphasised that there is more than one way to get round your obstacles; you can go under them, over them and around them. As a woman she recounted a number of personal anecdotes which illustrated her sheer determination to succeed and be the best at what she was doing, always giving more than 100%.
Reena Ranger, Mona Remtulla, Priti Patel MP, Cllr Lurline Champagnie, Cllr Mimi Harker, Marianne Fallon, Kulveer Ranger, Rishi Rich, Anjali Pathak, Kiran Sharma, Tasmin Lucia-Khan, Rajesh Agarwal

Cllr. Mimi Harker OBE, the first Asian Mayor of Amersham, spoke how she had entered politics in an unexpected way when she opposed a new property development in her local area. She spoke candidly of the challenges she had faced and sometimes of having to exert herself in what is a male dominated environment . She urged those present that they should show a dogged determination to succeed and achieve their objectives regardless of opposition faced. Mimi addressed the importance of getting involved and how it could benefit the local area and the country as a whole. Nationally, Cllr Harker, is responsible for the 12A cinema classification and founded the national ‘Save Our Post Office’ Campaign. She has worked on the Cross Party Task Force encouraging women to participate in public life.

Mr Kulveer Singh Ranger spoke about how he too has worked in both political and commercial worlds and also had noticed the lack of women in both at a certain level. He also commented on the unfortunate fact that when some women achieve senior positions they are labelled as alpha females and somehow this implies that they have to become like men to succeed. He acknowledged that women brought many qualities including compassion and intuition to the table, but were often told to exclude these from their work to the loss of the organisation they were engaged with.

Women Empowered had collaborated with Conservative Women’s Network and Fabian Women’s Network, who offered advice & courses which can be used in many walks of life. Women Empowered championed and thanked Sabiha Hudda-Khakhu of ISHK Photography for the pictures the world would see.

The evening then progressed to a Q&A session with questions being taken from the floor followed by dinner and networking.
For more details of the next event please go to www.womenempowered.co.uk

WE seeks to:

ENGAGE more women in discussion;

ENCOURAGE fresh and varied thinking and perspective;

EMPOWER women to find the inner confidence to take the next step;

ENABLE and support them through the journey by putting them in touch with organisations that can nurture their ideas and mentors who can assist in achieving those goals;

To provide a platform to enable women to articulate their issues and concerns with a chance to meet decision makers and get their views and opinions heard.

To create a powerful and exciting network for women to link up and help each other.

We is open to all, there is no membership required, a small nominal ticket price may apply.

Disclaimer: Speakers may change without prior notice. All partners at the event are individual third parties and personal due diligence should be done.
Women Empowered shall not take any responsibilities for any transactions done with any third party organisation.
Please Note: Photos and video recordings may be taken at this event and used on social media sites. Anyone that do not want to be included please let the organisers know.