Women Empowerment

Vatsalya is becoming exceedingly active in economic empowerment activities for extremely poor and marginalized women. The need for it dawned on us a few years ago when we found that most of the children we cared for, came essentially from families where the mother was left alone to fend for herself and her children. Since she had no knowledge or skill for earning a livelihood, both she and her children were exposed to all kinds of exploitation and suffering.

In the last 9-10 years, we have trained over 4500 women in livelihood skills such as Kantha, Block printing, Natural Dyeing, Tailoring, etc. They are also keen on solar technology and organic farming which they insist on learning in their free time. Most of our artisans working on campus can drive a tractor, which they enjoy immensely.

 Our major partners in this venture have been Anchal and Ripples of hope, USA; iPartner, UK, and Gram Shakti, India.  It is a very successful program and a Vatsalya-trained artisan earns anything between Rs.4000 to 20000 per month from Anoothi. Recently we came to know of yet another way in which these women are becoming more and more self-reliant.  Each woman who has learned the skills and earned a livelihood using her skills, not only improved her livelihood standard but also educated their children.