Women@Work_ A major break through for British Council Pakistan British Council Pakistan wins cash pound 700 sponsorship from APNA Arts UK. Women@work, an exhibition of working women by the British Council Pakistan will be exhibited in Nottingham, UK during the month of March 2005 with the launch event taking place on International Women's Day. The first showing in Nottingham will be followed by a regional and a national tour with educational workshops within the UK. This dual language exhibition, English and Urdu, portrays Pakistani women in non-traditional areas of work and challenges outdated stereotype preconceptions about women's role in Pakistani society and the wider Diaspora. It was designed to increase public awareness of the positive contributions that women make in Pakistan and around the world outside of traditional areas of work. The posters focus specifically on women working in less 'traditionally' female professions, such as, engineers, judges, pilots, taxi drivers, politician's etc. The images demonstrate that women are often in positions of control and authority in their work environments. Similarly, they have line-management responsibility for the work of men as well as women. The posters are attractive and reflect working women of Pakistan background in a real life situation. Apna Arts working in partnership with other UK based arts and educational organizations would like to take the exhibition around schools and community organisations in Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester and Bradford areas, using the exhibition and an accompanying education pack as a catalyst to improve educational achievements among young British Pakistani children, who have traditionally under achieved. The British Pakistani community as a whole ends up in very low grade jobs and women still are under achieving in education and other progressive activities. These portrayals of women as positive role models will be used to encourage young children in schools as well as their mothers in the community to reach higher goals through improved confidence and new insights into wider possibilities for future employment. Apna Arts are also interested in linking the exhibition with 'Roti, Kapra or Makaan', an education pack being developed for key stages 3 and 4. To accompany the education pack a series of workshops with schools in Nottingham will be held over a period of six weeks. Experienced artists within the UK will be appointed to work with a group of 15-17 year olds in various schools using the working environment as the focus of learning. This is the first ever collaboration between British Council Pakistan, Human Rights Education Programme Pakistan, APNA Arts, the Arts Council of England and Nottingham City Council. The project has been evolved as a strong connecting future project addressing the issues of identity, changing places and achieving mutuality in full spirit. APNA Arts through support from the Arts Council of England and Nottingham City Council have given sterling 700 cash sponsorship towards the re-designing of the project so it is suitable to be shown in the UK. This is the first ever sponsorship British Council Pakistan has got directly from a UK based organisations. The women@work will be available for showing at other venues across the country and APNA Arts will actively promote its availability to regional and national galleries and organisations. Look out for more information on http://www.britishcouncil.org/pakistan