NEW DELHI, Jan 13 : An Indian woman peacekeeper deployed in South Sudan has won a UN award for a project that highlights a gender-inclusive approach.
Major Swathi Shanti Kumar, 31, currently serving in the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), won the UN Secretary-General Award for the gender-inclusive approach for her project ‘Equal Partners, Lasting Peace’.
The Permanent Mission of India to the UN in a social media post on Tuesday congratulated Kumar “for the award by @UN Secretary-General for leading the unique gender-inclusive project in #UNMISS”.
The UN mission in South Sudan also congratulated Kumar, saying it is “proud of our #UNMISS peacekeeper” for winning the award for the gender-inclusive approach for her project.
An UNMISS article in December last year highlights Kumar’s efforts to engage with women in South Sudan during her deployment.
“Women were particularly reluctant. We are the first female engagement team that India has deployed so they were not used to seeing women in uniform,” the article quotes Kumar as saying.
She said that despite challenges in the beginning, “we kept going and distributed important health kits and slowly, women in the local communities started trusting us more”.
“During our first patrol, women were not speaking to us at all. Now they are approaching us by themselves to share their stories. And you can really see the relief they feel after talking to us about their concerns,” Kumar said in the article.
Kumar stressed that women in South Sudan are “strong and able to lead their communities. If they can work through their challenges, they will be one of the driving forces to achieve peace”.
India is among the largest contributors of uniformed personnel to UN Peacekeeping. It currently deploys more than 5,300 military and police personnel to the UN peace operations across the world. (PTI)
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