Nadia Patel Gangjee: Empowering Fellow Women

Narrative

Pakistan has female population of around 101 million (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, 2021), many of these females must give up their education and career because of the undue pressure from a society and culture that expects them to be housebound and perform only house chores. Considering the high inflation and increasing costs of living in the country, the old tradition of a single member (male) earning in the family must be changed and females need to be encouraged and genuinely supported to earn side incomes while managing their families at home.

However, to maintain the expectation to stay home, there was a dire need for a platform that could provide local women with an opportunity to earn reliable and safe income, along with providing an opportunity to display their talents and great skills ranging from crafting and designing to trading household and lifestyle products.

In developing country such as Pakistan, where even in 20th century women cannot be vocal about their thoughts and feelings, how can anyone be convinced that they can be delegated to share the responsibility of supporting their families? Of course, the problem was the absence of awareness and misconceptions about empowering females. There was an absolute need for a leader who could take charge to enlighten society about the fact that homesteads can do wonders.

Nadia Patel Gangjee became that leader who instigated local women’s empowerment by starting a small WhatsApp group for women—a platform for women ensuring safe buying and selling of both new and/or pre-loved goods. Nadia took this initiative after she experienced an incident of personal harassment and swindle (Nadia Patel Gangjee LinkedIn Profile page, n.d.).

Nadia, being a woman, was constantly harassed by prank calls after she posted an advertisement to buy a mobile phone. In consequences to this, she felt that there was no safe forum for women where they can trade safely. She realized the need for a secure, close-knit platform to enable women to buy, sell, and even network with like-minded women, without any safety issues.

The initiative was taken as she identified this as an opportunity, and created a small WhatsApp group, which provided homemakers with an opportunity to buy and sell products, transforming into a community, and later becoming Pakistan’s first online market place and award-winning venture called “SHEOPS.” SHEOPS is a secure and safe platform where local women can display their skills and talents from the comfort of their own homes (SHEOPS, 2021).

SHEOPS Facebook page started in April 2015, and currently has more than 130 thousand members and around 1000 registered sellers who use the platform to sell their products and services. It is a very simple and easy to use platform. SHEOPS gives women a safe and secure platform to buy and sell fashion, beauty, and lifestyle products. This means SHEOPS is responsible for everything—from vetting the buyer, to handling transactions, and shipping and marketing products—so that sellers can focus on growing their business. A key element about SHEOPS is keeping the community curated so that consumers know whom they are buying from, and sellers know whom they are selling to.

SHEOPS has received many prestigious national and international awards including P@sha’s Best ICT (Information and Communication Technology) Start-up Award in 2016, and the APICTA Silver Award in Inclusion and Community, also in 2016. Nadia also represented this platform in the digital divide for women at a high-level UN (United Nations) Women and EU Commission’s conference in Brussels in April 2018. Nadia is a lead trainer for #SheMeansBusiness by Facebook, Facebook Certified Digital Marketing Associate, and Fellow of the Facebook Community Leadership Program. Her passion for empowering women professionally and economically makes her continuously strive and work for the progression of women.