Women empowerment program is one of the major programs which have three projects micro credit, income generation and women education & health.
The microcredit cooperative support program based on cooperative, includes saving and credit among women groups and registration on cooperative. The income generation program includes activities related to agriculture and non agriculture sectors that motivate women to generate the income. Women education and life skills program include the literacy program and different types of life skills training that help women to develop knowledge and skills. Women are trained on health practices and special clinic are organized.
It has aim to empower the women in Jitpur Community to improve their quality of life by supporting economic tools and educating them on their rights and life skills along with health.
Major Objectives of the program are:
- To supply economic tools to women groups for income generation
- To educate women on their rights and life skills
- To improving women health (through community health program)
The Micro Credit Program
Microfinance is considered to be a key poverty alleviation strategy to enable poor women to cope with adverse economic impacts. To facilitate this VIN designed a program to unite women into community groups, thus form saving and credit co-operatives. By providing the women with greater access to savings and credit, enables them to have a stronger position in economic decision making.
A saving and credit cooperative named “Jitpurphedi Agriculture Women Cooperative Limited” (JAWCL) is formed and run by the community women from 2010.
It was found that altogether 486 women were involved in cooperative. After all cooperative was able to generate Rs. 271881 as net profit. It seems that women had run cooperative successfully and were able to generate profit in significant amount within short period.
It is concluded that the micro credit program had increased women access to savings and credit. It helped women to decide on savings and credit which had strengthened women role in economic decisions of the household. It had contributed to empower women. Also it had motivated towards more saving and investing on productive sector. It was also proved by one of the cooperative member saying-
I took a small amount of loan from cooperative and bought a cow. I could save a little amount from cow’s milk. It has been very helpful for me. It made my life easier. Now I have taken loan of 50000 from co-operative and started a shop. The shop has given me
Income Generation Project
VIN had focused income generation and marketing activities among women. It directly linked women with economy which was considered as a vital for empowerment. Women were trained on sewing and cutting throughput the year.
It was conducted basic and advance training on sewing and cutting to women. There were six women on basic courses and four in advance courses. VIN had supported one fourth of the training cost and other managed by them. Women were happy to have the training. Three of them (Parbati Ghimire, Sarita Gajurel and Sabitri Aryal) had already started business. It was found that sewing/ cutting training had benefited 10 women from Jitpur. It had shown that it would be effective skills for those women who were unemployed and didn’t have enough land to cultivate. Also it didn’t need big budget to start the business. It had proved to be a popular business among women.
Literacy and Life Skill Classes
Education and Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. VIN had been providing life skill training to the members with the help of international volunteers since last year.
The objectives of this program were:
- To educate women about their rights and life skills
- To increase literacy rate to 95% of women aged 14-45 who are participating in different community activities (IGP).
Throughout the year, VIN had arranged life skill training to women from different part of the community. There were altogether 406 women in all programs. The training had covered Women right, Health education, Communication, Time management, Self esteem, Stress management, Cultural sharing, Entrepreneurship skills development training, English language class and Agricultural group orientation.
