Testimonials About Kalyani Menon-Sen

Kalyani's ability to combine strong conceptual and analytical skills with a very human and practical approach results in a transfer of knowledge that is both powerful and lasting.

Richard Conroy Senior Deputy RR UNDP-India office (now RR Uzbekistan).

Kalyani, you have found the most strategic and effective ways to build into UNDP/India's work a solid agenda for gender equality. You have done much more in transforming minds, attitudes and perceptions around you because of your sensitivity to differences and your strong principles.  You never lost sight of what really matters: what difference does it make in women's lives.

Aster Zaoude, Senior Advisor, Gender, UNDP, New York.

On the first day of the gender sensitisation workshop that a group of us underwent way back in 1999, we were asked what we understood by the word ‘gender’.  Pat came my reply, “Gender?  Gender is..….. GENDER as in male, female and neuter!”  This was not met by a guffaw of laughter as I now feel (in hindsight) that it deserved……, because my fellow participants were no wiser.

 My colleagues and I have come a long way since then to today when we see everything - from our programmes, to our organisational procedures, to our personal lives and experiences - through a gender lens.  And holding our hands through this path – guiding us along, picking us up when we faltered and stumbled – was Kalyani (Kalyani Menon-Sen as she is officially known).  If we have begun to ask questions of the lessons we were taught as children, of the very things we accepted as our heritage/tradition, the credit goes entirely to this woman.  She stood as strong as a pillar to help us along when such soul searching naturally met with stiff resistance from the patriarchal society we live in – at home and in the office.  We, at UNDP/New Delhi, especially the women and men who comprise the gender core group (that we are so proud of) owe it to her that we treat ourselves and others as ‘persons’ and not ‘men’ or ‘women’ – what is more as ‘equal’ persons.  Thank you, Kalyani.

Shashi Sudhir, Programme Assistant and member of the Gender Core Group in the UNDP India CO