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| Picture 1: Women under the program showing their products (e.g. mats, baskets) which will be painted with colour and finished with lacquer. The products are sold at exhibitions across India. |
The Action Center for Transformation (ACT)’s Women
Livelihood Program is currently in its second year, with 10 women under the
programme. The aim of this project is to enhance the lives of these women
upgrading the income-earning ability of the women, seven of them are married
and three unmarried. This is done by developing the skills of the women in the
making and selling of hand-crafted items. It also makes use of ACT’s current
initiative of collecting newspapers to recycle. The catalyst of the Women
Livelihood Project was the desire to find a way to recycle the newspaper into
something more valuable. In synergizing these two projects, two goals are met –
the recycling of newspapers and the enhancement of the incomes of the urban
poor.
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| Picture 2: Rena, a village woman, making strips of rolled newspaper which will be weaved into products later |
The project runs over 3 years. The first year is teaching
and development of the skills of the women to produce the items. A craft
designer on the ACT team is in charge of teaching the women the skills needed. The
second year is focused on selling the products to the market. Under the programme,
the women have travelled domestically to companies such as Panasonic to teach
their craft. To date, the women have visited several companies. They visit
universities to hold exhibitions to display and sell their wares or to teach
their craft as well. The third year is devoted to teach the women the marketing
and enterprise skills they need to make the project completely self-sustaining
by the community. For the first and second years, ACT will be in charge of
marketing the products of the women. However, this role will be passed on to
the women in the third year. ACT will then move on to the role of an adviser
instead of an operator of the project. The project will then be the community’s
to run for many years to come.
Apart from increasing the incomes of the women in the
village, there are various other indirect benefits that the villagers have
seen. First, the households of the women are now better able to put their
children to school and pay for the other educational materials required, such as
books and uniforms. This ensures that the next generations of the village’s
children have better lives through more secure, higher-paying jobs.
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| Picture 3: The children of the women under ACT's Women Livelihood Programe playing a game of strings |
It also elevates the role of traditional Indian women
from housewives to potential income contributors to the households as well. Interviews
of women for case studies on the effects of such programmes have seen women
having a greater say in the decisions of the family, in a traditional village
where gender inequality is still prevalent.
To view the products of these women and support the omen
Livelihood Programme by making a purchase, please visit ACT’s Facebook page here.
