The terms empowerment is synonymous with women of
this world. Nature has bestowed one of its most vital powers to women: create,
nurture, and deliver a new life. This is profoundly empowering for the entire
feminine fraternity of the earth.
Yet it is ironical that we have March 8th
as the international women’s day to focus on efforts to empower women.
Socially, after years of suppression, and domination,
women seemed to have accepted themselves as inferior to men. Fortunately, not
all women have grown in such environments but have received equal opportunity
to thrive, to contribute and to succeed in all walks of life as men. Today
women have excelled in academics, economics, governance, corporate, art,
science, and technology.
Currently economic independence is one of the parameters
for women to regain their status of equality with men. This independence leads
to a sense of freedom to make their own decisions and to choose the best for their
children’s well-being. Woman empowerment also means to develop the clarity to
take control of her future.
Financial independence has made the rural women go
out of the four walls of their house, interact with confidence, think
positively about her community and contribute in overall development of her
village. The women have developed the ability to come up with out of the box
solutions for their daily challenges at home or at work. They have earned the
well deserved respect in their society.
Being compassionate towards efforts to empower the
rural women is the need of the hour. And compassion means enabling them to
realize their own potential and renew their lost confidence to influence their life
and community progressively.
ACT has started this journey since 2010, not only training rural women with various up-cycling skills but facilitating them to regain their self confidence and reignite their naturally empowered souls.
Let’s see how ACT has enabled the awakening of the
women in villages that in turn has made an impact on the quality of their daily
lives. This journey had its own hurdles and challenges but ACT has emerged
victorious with tons of learning from each and every project. Moving from one
project to another seemed like achieving milestones. ACT started its training
programs with two women and today it has sown the seed of development and
independence among 200 women. ACT also plays a role to connect the rural women
to the market and provide a forward linkage for sustainability.
2012: The first project involved motivating and
training 20 women of the Bandhwari village in Gurgaon district.
2013: ACT
Trained 40 women migrants from Nepal who were HIV infected, and resided in the
Delhi – NCR area. This time bound project was initiated and supported by the
Modi Foundation
2014: ACT
implemented a skill development program for 40 women of the Kanpur village in
Udaipur district. This six months project was supported by Hindustan Zinc
Limited.
2015: ACT conducted
workshops for skill development of 40 women in the Saat Gaon Road village in
Hissar district and 20 women in the Bhondsi urban village in Gurgaon district.
Jindal Foundation supported the program in Hissar. ACT is also involved in
providing market exposure to these women and their upcycled products. ACT
continues to provide them the know how to sustain their skills beyond the
stipulated time period of the project.
2016: ACT worked on skill development of 10 women of
the Gwalpahari village and 10 women of the Islamabad village in Palwal,
Faridabad and 10 women of the Bhondsi semi
urban and 10 women of the Pallera village.
ACT continues to work with women clusters of
Bandhwari, Bhondsi, Gwalpahari , Islamabad, Bhondsi semi urban and Pallera
village in an ongoing manner.
Are you aware of a women cluster of a village or a
group of villages who would benefit from such workshops or a team that is in
need of an organized effort? Are you eager to get involved in such projects? Reach
out to us at ACT.
Send an email, call us up. We will enable you to define
goals, share our learning, train your women cluster and facilitate you to
empower your team in a sustainable manner.
