Inherent talent is a gift but not everyone knows how to make the most of it. While some let
their light shine bright enough for everyone to see, others shy away from the
limelight; this is especially true in the case of women once they get married
and have children. So, it is inspiring to see people who confidently showcase
their talent and in the process, motivate others to do the same. Sonu Dabral
from Porvorim is one such woman, who has been all over the country before
calling Goa home ten years ago. After observing how society works here, she
realised that all women really need is a platform. That’s when Shenergy,
synergy of the she-energy, was founded by Sonu.
“The theme of Shenergy is ‘Extraordinary
ordinary’ women, which provides a platform to women to showcase their talents,
to bond and connect with other like-minded women, to ‘shenergise’ and to
inspire and get inspired by each other’s life stories. We aim at synergising
our resources and positive energies for the greater good,” says Sonu, the
founder of Shenergy.
Sonu launched a website (shenergy.in) in October last year and
simultaneously launched a Facebook and Whatsapp group; a YouTube channel will
be coming out soon. “I am also planning to start workshops and panel
discussions for women, and ‘wrap a wish’, which will cater to social causes. We
want to change stereotypes about women and in that attempt, we launched
’thebitches’ which has given a new meaning to the word, as it stands for Beautiful,
Intelligent, Talented, Careerpersons, Homemakers and Empowerment Space,” adds
Sonu.
Shenergy works with girls and women across the world and is open
to anyone who wants to join in. Their Facebook account has received over a
1,000 members and their Whatsapp account also works as yellow pages, networking
among 150 participants. “The website has stories of women as I feel everybody
has a wonderful story to tell, they only need a platform to share it. We will
be adding more features to make it more interactive,” says Sonu, who has
written two novels, ‘Phantom of The Raymond Villa’ and ‘Mystery of The Kungfu
Panda’, as part of a mystery series for Indian kids ’The Kool Five’.
One of the first contests that thebitches conducted was a
‘Healthy tiffin bites’ contest that received 6,000 votes for 30 recipes. The
recipes were shared by women from Kashmir to Nepal to Australia and even
featured an eight-year-old chef who was motivated by her mother. “The judges of
the competition were Dr Harpreet Pascricha and Vashali Sood and two prizes were
given out for the most popular and the judges favourite recipe. We will be
adding regional, traditional and desserts category to the website and the 20
best dishes will be published in a cook book with the women itself becoming
co-writers,” she explains.
The
first event organised by Shenergy was a meet and mingle, talen’tell and pop up
at Saraya, Sangolda followed by Shenergized meet and greet at I love Bell
Bottoms, Anjuna. Shenergia was their most recent event in collaboration with Go
Womania, which saw the participation of 40 pop up stalls and 12 performers; the
winners of the Shenergy ‘healthy tiffin bites’ contest were announced here. “It
was a very different atmosphere as more women joined in and they brought forth
their talent in the form of stalls that were set up and the acts that they
performed. Part of the proceeds went towards our social cause of ‘clean
drinking water for the needy’ as we believe that healthy cooking begins with
healthy water and unclean water is the root cause of many diseases and poor
attendance at work and school,” concludes Sonu.
