Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has announced the functional launch of The Gender Park campus in Kozhikode, noting that the Rs 200-crore endeavour will enable women and transgender individuals to become sustainable entrepreneurs.

“The Gender Park sets a model for not just the country, but the whole world,” the Chief Minister said, after declaring open a Gender Museum, Gender Library, Convention Centre and an amphitheatre that form the first phase of the pioneering project aimed at boosting gender equality in the subcontinent.

At the Gender Park campus in suburban Vellimadukunnu, he also laid the foundation of an International Women’s Trade and Research Centre (iWTC) that envisages a secure and sustained ecosystem for women entrepreneurs. He also unveiled a model of the multi-storey complex and a space for them to market products.

The Gender Park should have happened long ago, but we should be happy we have realised it at least now, Vijayan said at the Park, where a three-day International Conference on Gender Equality (ICGE) by the state government concluded its second edition.

Minister for Health, Social Justice and Women and Child Development KK Shailaja, chairing the ceremony, said the government will bring out a policy to promote social entrepreneurship among women and transgender individuals.

Also, the deliberations at ICGE-II are poised to make their way into a policy framework, which the Gender Park and UN Women will submit to the Kerala government as recommendations for social inclusiveness and sustainable social business. “We will collate the observations and opinions of the experts who addressed the three-day event,” she added, a day after the 16-session summit that featured 90 speakers from 20 countries.

The hybrid conclave was organised by the state government’s Department of Women and Child Development in association with UN Women, a body by the United Nations.

Nishtha Satyam, Deputy Country Representative of UN Women (MCO - India, Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka), hailed the opening of The Gender Park campus as a “historic step” towards the empowerment of women and transgender people. “We will go ahead to ensure that our association with the Kerala government brings out solid results in the years to come,” she added.

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