WOMEN’S CAPACITY BUILDING AND SKILL DEVELOPMENT
Sshrishti’s vision of holistic development affirms the essential linkages between education, social justice and economic inclusion and empowerment. It is with this recognition that along with its initiatives in education, Sshrishti has envisioned an inclusive programme of women’s empowerment that addresses concerns of gender equity by fostering skill-building and capacity-development amongst women from some of the country’s poorest neighbourhoods.
Women’s effective and gainful participation in the workforce is recognized not only as a precondition to holistic community development, but a fundamental indicator of how a nation treats crucial half of its population – its women. Vocational training and skill-building remains critical for both, women’s economic self-sufficiency and their quest of dignity and empowerment.
Sshrishti Jagriti
Sshrishti’s Women’s Empowerment programme begun in May 2012 seeks to provide vocational training and skill-development opportunities to women from marginalized communities, and to secure marketing networks to provide sustained income generation for its beneficiaries. This skill provision-production-marketing model aims at effective capacity building to foster self-sufficiency and employability for women from impoverished neighbourhoods.
Sshrishti Jagriti thus aims at:
- 1. Fostering awareness through community mobilization and participation
- 2. Provisioning skill-development through craft training and vocational guidance
- 3. Securing self-reliance and economic participation through marketing avenues like
- – Online marketing platforms
- – Corporate events
- – Retail partnerships
- – Public events, fares and exhibitions
- 4. Fostering gainful employability and economic self-sufficiency in the long run
Currently, Sshrishti runs centres for vocational training in tailoring and hand-crafting at:
- 1. Bhatti Mines, Sanjay Colony, New Delhi
Completed Projects:
- 1. Israil Camp, Rangpuri Pahari, New Delhi
- 2. Nala Camp, Rangpuri Pahari, New Delhi
- 3. Nainital District, Uttarakhand (Training in horticultural practices also provided along with tailoring)
RIGHTS’ AWARENESS, REDRESSAL AND ADVOCACY
India manifests a prolonged and relentless history of violence against women and girls – a manifestation of the nation’s endemic patriarchal bias that manifests in myriad ways and in an array of domains. From domestic violence and marital rape, to dowry deaths, sexual abuse or harassment at the workplace, or mundane eve-teasing. The forms that violence against women takes are many. While violence and rights’ abuses persist unabated, the nation’s legal machinery staggers in recording and convictions.
A 2012 survey revealed the striking callousness of law – fewer than 15% of the rapes reported came to trial, only 24.2% of the registered rape cases in the year had lead to conviction.
Women then have been victims also of an apathetic legal mechanism, with little or no access to remedy or redressal.
Sshrishti’s Mahila Panchayat
Sshrishti’s women’s empowerment initiative, in partnership with the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) also provides a platform for articulating rights-abuses and securing legal counsel and redressal for women from one of Delhi’s most impoverished and vulnerable communities – the Oudh community residing at Bhatti Mines on the fringes of Delhi. The ‘Mahila Panchayat’ conducts periodic workshops for rights-awareness and has weekly meetings to hear grievances. It provides counsel and facilitates familial or legal redressal of rights violations.Sshrishti’s Mahila Panchayant thus aims at:
- 1. Creating rights’ awareness amongst women from marginalized communities
- 2. Providing a platform for articulating rights’ abuses
- 3. Facilitating redressal through counseling and legal procedures
- 4. Mobilizing men and women towards communal vigilance and proactive action
