For Women
Skill Upliftment Program to empower rural women financially at Chanditara Village, Chandauli
In the Summer of 2021, we visited the village of Chanditara where women were only meant to do everyday household chores and girls could only go to nearby schools or colleges for basic education. To learn some things new and work outside of their homes to make themselves financially indepedent was just a dream they saw. We got in touch with the local Village Council heads to find a solution to empower these women as we saw a spark in them to learn a new skill and see themselves as contributing to the household incomes. In order to increase the earnings of domestic workers in Chanditara village, District Chandauli, Learnclusive donated ten sewing machines that were purchased through a fundraising drive. The skill center with the sewing machines was set up in a Village Council facility. The endeavor involved selecting expert trainers, arranging and managing their sessions, and enabling their participation in an ongoing five-month course on tailoring, stitching and clothing production.
The ongoing 5 Month vocational training programme enables them to stitch small cloth bags, cloth napkins, blouses, shirts, skirts, men’s kurta and pyjamas. They were then helped by the local social workers and small tradesmen in collaboration with Village Council Heads to get jobs in nearby textile factories. Some preferred to stitch garments at the our sewing facilitiy and sell them to small boutiques in nearby areas. Some even did job work for small boutiques near Varanasi. The women and girls were now earning between Rs. 5000- 8000 per month from the stitching and sewing activities.
The women and young girls of the village further expressed their wish to learn basic computing skills so that they are able to do online jobs which require exposure to basic computing knowledge. The skill of learning to work on computers will really add to their horizon of jobs where they can work from home and perform an array of outsourcing jobs from their homes, without having to step out of the realms of the village boundaries. We hope to fundraise again and set up 10 computers in the Village Council facility so that the girls can learn this new skill too.
Letter of Gratitude from Head of Village Council of Chanditara Village, Mr Satish Kumar
Research
“To what extent does female empowerment through skill upliftment serve as a feasible solution to combating gender inequality in rural India?”
Gender is a social construct; consequently, gender roles may differ across different cultures, times and geographies. However, a hierarchical structure, resulting from gender, which leads to several inequalities is evident throughout demographics. Women tend to suffer from these inequalities to the greatest extent in certain regions, such as rural India, wherein deeply embedded stereotypes and biases prevail. That being said, one solution to reducing gender inequality is often cited as being female empowerment. In light of the aforementioned, this research paper was aimed at examining the extent to which skill upliftment could enable female empowerment and thus help reduce gender inequality in the context of Chanditara (a village in India). By conducting thematic analysis on the primary data collected through data triangulation, it was concluded that skill upliftment in Chanditara may stimulate women’s, and even young girls’, empowerment on an individual level but in order to successfully reduce gender inequality, female empowerment on the collective must be achieved. Key Words: Gender, Gender Inequality, Women Empowerment, Skill Upliftment