The International Women’s Day celebrated on March 8 brings together women from all walks of life to revel in a day of sisterhood. Recognizing their integral role and commitment to the family, community and nation at large, Sambhav Foundation in this blog brings to fore key socio-economic challenges faced by women and empowerment initiatives that transform their outlook personally and professionally.
Most often the voice and capabilities of women particularly from the underprivileged communities go unrecognized and hidden due to stereotyped careers, social prejudice and economic/educational backwardness and other factors. Our strategic mobilization further revealed an appalling number of women are still under the shadow of these realities. Sparked by the idea “How Beauty of Women’s Role was fenced in Barbed Wires” we collaborated with leading companies, organizations and local governmental bodies, where millions of rupees are invested into diverse women-centric initiatives. Each section below is a testament to our mission in making vulnerable women communities vision a decent livelihood, become financially independent, socially resilient, advance knowledge-base and skills, and achieve career/entrepreneurial ambitions.
Shifting Mindsets
Traditional societies thought men were change-drivers, but this thinking is not a good news for the women as it undersells their abilities and stops their career mobility. Our mobilization drives brought in shock waves as we noticed that Manufacturing, Automobile and Construction trades were mostly male-dominated. For instance, the National Survey Sample Office (NSSO) report shows that over 8 million employed in the manufacturing sector, women represent only 1.6 million (20%). To break down this stigma and increase diversity and inclusion in women labor force participation in the male-dominated automobile, construction and manufacturing sectors, we equip vulnerable and differently-abled women with skills through our STT programs (Short-Term Training) in collaboration with AkzoNobel, ABG and HUL. Our impact level saw thousands of women joining companies full-time or a gig or even starting their own ventures to earn somewhere between INR 3,000 to 10,000 a month, giving them confidence and courage to support educational needs of their children and family expenses as well as achieve personal aspirations.
Nurturing Confidence
Waste drives are taking the bandwagon globally, but empowering vulnerable women communities engaged in waste management can not only boost environment/ecosystem but also build sustainable livelihoods. Our collective leadership under Saamuhika Shakti, we support vulnerable women waste pickers with leadership training programs where they build waste recycling, scrap collection and segregation to earn sustainable income and stay resistant to substance abuse and domestic violence. Our interventions in the case of hair picking/collecting women community has helped them with access to gated communities and private residences to keep the environment from hair waste, sell the collected hair waste to vendors for vessels or cash ranging between INR 3000 to 4000 and eventually preserving their generations-old skills.
Becoming Industrious
Crunching skilled technical talent in Indian industries which is expected to rise to 32% by 2040, our collective partnership with Kantar India Foundation, Schaeffler and Bajaj Finserv have committed to elevate underprivileged women to achieve technical skill proficiency, enhance employability and have stable income through skill development initiatives. Our gamified learning experience over 200+ hours have impacted women to develop critical data entry, retails and CRM voice process skills and land in paying jobs in paint, construction, beauty & apparel and BFSI industries. Interestingly our collaboration with Asia Foundation VISA launched Skills2Work program that empowered young women graduating Class 12 or graduation in Delhi to gear job-ready skills data analytics, cybersecurity and Tally skills in just 20-hours.
Market Linkage Opportunities
For a women coming from a low-income household, studying children, rigid family norms and gender-biased communities, entrepreneurial motivation would be considerably low. Designing our collective impact initiatives that link skills to earning potential has significantly transformed the lives of vulnerable women communities across India. On-the-Go Beauty kiosk is one such initiative where women in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune and Bangalore get trained & certified in beauty therapy, business development and beauty entrepreneurship programs to render transformative beauty experience for busy working professionals instant on their company premises for a fee. Interacting with clients and availing them time-crunching purchasing opportunity, they feel enriched to build new business development strategies, understand consumer preferences, innovate service delivery and increase earning potential as well as contribute toward future women-centric initiatives.
The International Women’s Day gives us all an opportunity along with our partners and donors to increase our commitment and send down the elevator to those untouched and unreached women communities (vulnerable or differently-abled) so that they can climb new heights to showcase their potentials, share experiences and drive change at scale!
