Kazipet: Jon Dunham lauds women leaders

Kazipet: Jon Dunham, the maker of top grossing films like 'Spirit of the Marathon' and 'Boston', who was here to promote women leadership as part of the celebrations to mark 10 years of the US Consulate services in Hyderabad, on Thursday visited Bala Vikasa centre in Kazipet and interacted with the leaders of Women Integrated Development programme.

Speaking to over 350 Self-Help Association (SHA) members, the award-winning filmmaker and 25-time marathon finisher Jon Dunham narrated how the Boston Marathon became a key rallying point for women's participation in sporting events for the first time in the 1960s.

In an effort to encourage women to keep going strong, he likened a marathon to the journey of life and expressed that, "Running a marathon requires a lot of physical and mental strength and we discover potential we don't know we have up until then.

Life, too, is just like that. We feel like stopping sometimes. We feel tired. But we put one foot in front of the other and keep pushing determinately to find ourselves crossing over the finish line."

The women leaders present too shared their personal stories of transformation since joining Bala Vikasa and narrated intimate experiences of how they were able to break out of their shells, create their own space, assert their identity and secure financial independence over the past two decades.

Bala Vikasa Executive Director Shoury Reddy informed Dunham and his partner, Antoinette, of the various activities that were being implemented to empower women intellectually, socially, financially and politically.