Jagpal Kaur, aged 48, from village Saron of Sangrur district, learnt the skill of stitching and candle making from Umeed Foundation. Now, she is earning Rs 2,000-Rs 3,000 per month though the acquired skill, and also teaches stitching to local village girls.
Gurmeet Kaur, in her mid forties from village Sanghreri of the same district, a beneficiary of dairy training from the Foundation and earning Rs 3,000-Rs 3,500 per month.
Manjeet Kaur, in her mid thirties, of Majha village now earning Rs 2,500-Rs 3,000 after learning the art of Duree or cotton carpet weaving for commercial purposes from the foundation.
These are few success stories, where Umeed Foundation, a largest foundation in Punjab is providing social empowerment and primary healthcare in Sangrur -one of the backward districts of Punjab. Since its Inception, in 1997, it has reached out to 550 villages and has already made a difference to 4,000 women through its economic empowerment programme.
Speaking to Business Standard, Chairman of the Foundation Arvind Khanna added, “ The social welfare schemes launched by the state government could not meet their objectives, as there has been no coordinated system of vocational training centres. Moreover the agrarian sector can no longer provide a means of livelihood to everyone, because of division of land holdings to generations. There is vital crunch of viable means of self employment in rural Punjab. Taking cognisance of the problem, we started this initiative.”
Under the economic empowerment programme, it undertakes skill development training like bag making, soap and candle making, pickles, stitching, embroidery, crotchet work etc. Also, it is assisting women folk in making micro entrepreneurs. There are three areas where the foundation is working namely embroidery, dairying and duree weaving.This experiment, the first of its kind, followed identification and training of families who needed both help and support for their survival as the job market has been shrinking in rural Punjab with agriculture becoming unremunerative. After acquiring the skills, now these women from the weaker sections, have been economically empowered.
It has successfully formed over 350 self groups that consist of 15-20 women from similar economic strata from the same village. Each women contributes a like amount every month into the group’s bank account, from which members can take loans repayable at minimal interest rates. All this is undertaken in supervision of foundation representative. The initiative has already made a difference to 4,000 women through this programme.
Taking a step further, now Khanna plans to market the hand made product to USA and European countries. Already he bagged order from America and Australia for export of 2,500 pairs of croatia work done by village gals and ladies. He is also planning to provide job opportunities to educated youth residing in these villages. He mentioned he is in talks with lot of companies including blue chip companies for setting up rural BPO’s in the district to employ educated boys.
Besides, he also has plan to set up green house in five acres of land and has plans to grow organic and exotic vegetables having villagers as stake holders and wish to have tie up with Bharti-Walmart, hotels.
