Earlier this year, the activist Zerbanoo Gifford published a book on the achievements of Asian women from across the world. Ms Gifford is the director of Asha Foundation and holds the Nehru Centenary award for her international work, championing the rights of women, children and minorities.

She made history by being elected as the first non-white woman Liberal councillor in 1982, and has stood three times for parliament and has been a member of the Home Secretary’s Race Relations Forum, and she has chaired the Commission, ‘Looking into ethnic minority involvement in British Life’.

Why did you decide to write a book about inspirational women?

I wanted to discover what was really happening to women around the globe at this point in history, to record their experiences of life and so enable them to share their wisdom with others. Thanks to a NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and Arts) fellowship I had the opportunity to fulfil this ambition and to embark on a unique and extraordinary adventure.

I drew on as diverse a selection of women as possible, travelling from continent to continent, meeting more than 300 inspirational women from 60 countries, who ranged in age from their 20s to their 90s and who had excelled in every kind of endeavour. They spoke frankly to me about their lives and loves, their politics and passions, their beliefs and ideals.

There were the women pioneers who were groundbreakers, women like Zakia Hakki, the first woman judge in the Middle East and a member of the Iraqi parliament, Joan Davies, the first women to teach at the military academy, Sandhurst, Kiran Bedi, the first woman UN civilian police adviser and women who have succeeded in business – Marjorie Scardino, the CEO of the Pearson Group and Lila Poonawalla, the chair of two internationals.

Did the women share the same qualities or approach to life?

One common quality was that they were not afraid of failing, or of life, seeing obstacles as challenges to be overcome and failures as necessary lessons to be learnt in order to achieve success.

That was accompanied by the courage to seize opportunities and to make the most of any situation, whatever the difficulties or even the dangers.

They also proved themselves adept at finding new ways of problem-solving, using creativity and lateral thinking rather than the more traditional, and more masculine, tack of relying on logic alone. The concept of feminine intuition is often derided – but amongst the women I met the intuitive approach was frequently the most successful.

Why do you believe there’s a need for a book on inspirational women?

It was important to document these experiences in the physical form of a book in this age of electronic communication, when messages disappear into the ether at the click of a mouse – you can’t even wrap your fish and chips up in yesterday’s email. Along with these snap shots of the women’s lives, drawn from their photographs and their words, there are also their portraits painted by the artist Jeroo Roy. The collection will be another lasting reminder of this group of extraordinary women.”

Did you find that things are improving for women?

Many of the women I spoke had first-hand experience of old-fashioned sexism which took some of the shine off that golden moment in the UK of the swinging sixties. The equality campaigner, Lesley Abdela, remembered being made redundant in an advertising agency after refusing to sleep with her boss ‘He didn’t lay me – he laid me off’.

Prejudice was prevalent elsewhere in the world as well: Nafis Sadik, the Director of the United Nations Population Fund, recalled how she was initially denied equal pay when she applied to the UN and her fight to be appointed and paid at the same level and at the same rate as a similarly qualified male colleague ‘after six months they reluctantly offered me (the) post. I accepted it and went on to become head of the organization!’

Feminism too has changed. Once it tended to be a platform for pioneers championing the cause of ’sisters doing it for themselves’. Now there seems to be much more a sense of ’sisters doing it for each other’.

You’ve also set up an international mentoring scheme on the internet. What does that involve?

The website (www.asha-foundation-org/women) has biographies of all the inspirational women, many of whom have agreed to act as mentors. So, all anyone looking for a mentor has to do is decide who they think they would be best suited to them and fill in the on-line form and I then match them up. It’s as easy as that! By developing a website linking women from so many countries and so many different backgrounds, I’ve been able to create a truly global network of friendship and support.

Because it’s done over the internet, distance is no problem, so I can match young women up with a mentor on the other side of the world. It’s already proved very successful and it’s wonderful when I receive e-mails from women who tell me their lives have been changed by being matched up with their mentor. And, the mentors also tell me how much they’ve enjoyed giving something back and helping someone else achieve her goals.

- More on Asha Foundation
- The book is available from Amazon.co.uk