Oct 08, 2016 at 09:11 pm

Queen Honey Bee

Update posted by Jessica White

Iba Blah is one of the women who is increasing sustainable livelihoods for women and youth within the region of Meghalaya. I will be documenting her efforts through storytelling that will be made visible through an interactive exhibition on the Google Cultural Institute.

Iba, as pictured above is working on a bee-keeping project which was funded by the FAO. She was responsible for its' implementation after completion of the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) in the project villages.

Iba has been working with Hasina Kharbhih and the Impulse Initiative to give women a platform to work and develop their crafts that are intrinsically linked to their traditions. Many of these women have been at risk of human trafficking. Giving these women a platform for their skills to work and trade with their hand made crafts fairly, they are protected through both work and visibility taking them out of the shadows that once held them.

She is currently working as the Director of the United Fruit Company (UFC) Ltd. in Shillong. Since the change in business that took place in the early 70’s the company has been distributing cooking fuel in the form of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) to about 27,000 customers in Shillong city and its outskirts. Iba has been managing the marketing division of the company since 2002 and has played and important role in rapid grown of the company.

Before joining the UFC she was managing the outsourcing and telemarketing division of Dell Computers in New Delhi. Iba has BA in Economics from St. Mary's College in Shillong and an MBA in Marketing from the New Delhi Institute of Management. While she was working at the Secretary of Youth Affairs for the Meghalaya United Nations Association, she was involved in planning and implementing of an array of youth-led sustainable development projects in the state, attending high level meetings in Delhi to give youth a voice and inclusive representation.

She was selected as a youth delegate from India to participate at the historic Hague Appeal for Peace Conference in Holland in 1999 and then completed her internship with Peace Child International in the UK, after walking from the International Court of Justice in the Hague to the NATO headquarters in Brussels as part of the 2000 Peace Walk for Nuclear Disarmament. While doing her MBA she did her summer training in 2000 at the Educational Development Center in the US, where she worked on the Youth Employment Summit (YES) Campaign and later attended the 3rd YES Conference in Kenya in 2006 while on a business trip to Uganda.

She later returned to India and established the YES Meghalaya Network which she currently coordinates to create sustainable livelihoods for the rural youth of Meghalaya. She has traveled widely across North America, Europe, Africa and Asia while attending different international youth conferences and seminars. Iba joined Worldview Impact in 2008 making an impact in the Asian region on a multitude of levels.

Her stories have been making a substantial impact within the region. Being able to tell her stories to a wider audience with give other women, youth and communities the opportunities to understand how to build their own sustainable networks in often difficult minority cultures. Furthermore it will give girls who will get to know the nexus of her work through the education projects that we will be facilitating around the documentation of her stories a wider perspective on their own role within the world and the choices that are available to them on both a local and global level.

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