WISTA Sri Lanka to strengthen women in maritime

Women’s International Shipping & Logistics Association (WISTA) Sri Lanka plans to hold a sequel to its rural women’s development initiative Village in the City 2016 on 2 December this year at the Bayleaf, Colombo.

At its first ever press conference last week, WISTA Vice President Rukshila Antony De Saram said the first Village in the City created a platform for rural women to market their projects, with assistance from the Association to build contacts and to promote and develop their businesses.

This year’s program, she said, will focus on the North and the East, particularly Kaites, Mullaitivu and Batticaloa.

Talented women who have mastered various crafts will come together at the event, said De Saram, adding that the exhibitors will be offered assistance in fine-turning their products – from marketing to help with finances.

WISTA President Swabha Wickramasinghe introducing the Association to the media said that it has a long history of providing a networking platform for women in the maritime industry.

Although WISTA International was formed in 1974, WISTA Sri Lanka is still a very young association, having been established as recently as 2014.

“During this short period it has made a significant contribution to empowering women in the maritime industry, through its unrelenting efforts to provide a networking platform for its members, locally and internationally,” said Wickramasinghe.

By analysing the imbalance in gender equality in our industry, she said, WISTA has observed that there has never been a better time than now for women to take up challenges in the maritime industry.

“We believe WISTA can have a positive impact on the development of women in the maritime sector. One of our main objectives is to help women in the industry achieve their highest potential in their career by building leadership development and entrepreneurship,” she said.

“We can all agree the vast development of science and modern technology has opened new vistas for women by giving more significance to knowledge, intelligence and decision making,” she added.

However, noted Wickramasinghe, even with all this development, as a percentage, women engagement in the management sphere has still not reached its due place.

 “It was found that women held only 24% of senior roles across the world in 2016, which is an increase of only 3% from 2011.In 2015, women held only 16% of senior roles in India. This is believed to be even less than in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately in the maritime industry, it’s even less. This is why we want to encourage more women to take up challenges to work in their career in this dynamic industry,” she said. 

In order to facilitate this, Wickramasinghe went on to say, WISTA conducts educational seminars, motivational speeches, programs for work life balance, recognising and felicitating women achievers, extending support in maritime related studies and more. 

“We have also taken initiative to create awareness and get more women to join the industry. For this we conduct career guidance programs from school level to university level,” she said.

Among the initiatives carried out by WISTA, as spelt out by Vice President De Saram are seminars, career guidance programs, raining programs and CSR initiatives. 

“Shipping is a highly male dominated area that’s sometimes looked upon as a taboo for girls to enter, especially in our culture. It’s very important for us to educate and enlighten these school girls that they can consider shipping as a career to pursue,” she said.

De Saram highlighted that interested students have various institutes offering courses on the subject in Sri Lanka itself, and overseas travel is not required to acquire a qualification. 

According to De Saram, WISTA also conducted, among other things, training programs for female gantry crane operators of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA), not just in technical aspects but also in personal development, etiquette and communication.

“As an association we we believe in sharing knowledge, contributing to our profession and by doing so helping Sri Lanka to move forward in the shipping field. Although WISTA has been in operation in Sri Lanka for only three years, we have made a name and created an impact in the industry for our contributions,” she said. 

Among the programs organised by WISTA since its establishment are a joint seminar on maritime regulations and the way forward for Sri Lanka with Ceylon Association of Shipping Agents in June 2015, and the Colombo International Maritime Conference hosted b WISTA in September 2015.

 WISTA and CASA Conference on Emerging Trends in Shipping and Logistics – Asia Connect was held in May 2016. The Association also hosted President of the World Maritime University Dr. Cleopatra Dombia-Henry for the International Women’s Day March 2017.

 “WISTA Sri Lanka consists of over 90 members. Our aim is to give our members the best of the association, help them improve their career, motivate them to keep them well informed of the current shipping trends on the front.”