Women Empowerment
Before the earthquake of 2005, KIRF operated 19 Vocational Training Centres (VTC) all across Azad-Kashmir to equip women and girls with the skills that will enable them to start earning themselves and financially help the family.
In these KIRF VTC’s, the students are given the skills in sowing, cutting, embroidery, poultry farming, growing vegetation and producing handicrafts. We would set up a VTC in a very poor area where the women and girls have no skills or means to earn and compliment the family income. The local community would provide 1 or 2 rooms for us to start VTC. Typically, 30 to 50 women would enroll and get trained in a skill of their choice. Once all willing students are trained in the area the VTC would be moved to another location.
Once the women acquired the skills, they can utilize their skills and work from their homes to earn between Rs. 3000 – 6000 a month. This earning to them and their families is very helpful. With this money they can start sending their children to school for their education, providing medicine for their family, whenever needed.
The goal of KIRF is to open up production centres for their women to work in and these production centres will produce items of highest standards so that they can be sold in national and international markets.
Training in Home Made Products
KIRF believes in equitable access to development opportunities for all men and women. Due to poor women development indicators in the area, the issue received special attention under the KIRF programme. To make its women development intervention more need oriented, the organization conducted a need assessment survey in the districts of Bagh and Muzaffarabad. The study was designed with the help of two internees of the Sociology Department of University of the Punjab, Lahore.
Using focus group discussions held with various women groups in different villages, information was collected on the existing women empowerment activities in the area.
The activity also included the capacity gaps and identification of local and outside resources required to address the void.
Based on the demand for various skills, resource personnel were identified and a training curriculum, teaching aids and learning material was prepared and used in the capacity building workshops.
To empower local women to generate/save local incomes, 40 master trainers were trained in making washing soap, detergent powder and cleaning powder. The master trainers were also trained in fruit processing such as jam and jelly making techniques.
Two three-day Master Training Workshops, one each at Bagh and Haitian Dopatta (Muzaffarabad district), were conducted for 40 women participants. The home made product workshops covered making of washing soap, detergent and cleaning powders.
Through a participatory learning approach, the participants learnt about the contents and quantity of material used in making various products. The participants were given first hand experience of preparing, packing and costing of the products. They highly valued the training and viewed that comparing the cost difference; they had good marketing potential and would help them supplement their family income.
It is planned to use these master trainers to advance the livelihood activities at the community level.
Training in Fabric Dyeing-Tie and Dye
Dyeing of fabrics was another need identified in the study. The women currently depended on the local market for dyeing their ‘Dopattas’ and other clothing.
Even for the simple dyeing work, they had to depend on far off towns while the skill of multi color design was viewed as a rare skill in the area. For such designs, the people mostly depended on the markets outside AJK.
In two three-day trainings on garment dyeing especially ‘Tie and Dye’ and ‘Chunri design’, held in district Bagh and Muzaffarabad, the participants were explained about colours, colour combinations making different shades and design. Under this activity a total of 46 master trainers were trained.
As per feedback of the participants, the dyeing of fabrics had local demand and offered a significant return. As such, as an income saving/generating activity it had a good potential. The activity would be taken forward at the community level by involving the master training.
Training in Drying of Fruits & Vegetables
KIRF collaborated with Azad Jammu & Kashmir Community Development Programme and FAO to organize training in drying of fruits and vegetables and set up two solar dryers at Sari Awaira and Lower Sudhen Gali. These dryers offered drying capacity of 120kg of fruit and vegetables at one time. Using the new facilities, a total 115 participants, including 46 male & 69 females, were trained as master trainers. This activity was estimated to indirectly benefit 16,500 people.
These dryers helped the local communities in drying their vegetable and fruits to be used off season. The new capacity equipped the people, especially the women, to use it for drying their own fruits and vegetables and market them for raising their income level.
Fruit Grafting Training
Geographically, District Bagh has fertile, terraced land. Supported by appropriate rainfall, it is very suitable for orchard cultivation. The area is abundant with wild stone removing process Fruit loading Polythene covering for solar drying varieties of various fruit plants that offer a great potential for turning the basic capacity to introduce improved varieties and enhance the quality and quantity of fruit production through grafting techniques. The scions of improved varieties needed for grafting are also available in the area and could be profitably used by the people using the grafting techniques. The enhanced production would feed the starving local market and would have a multiplying effect on the growers, farm workers, transporters and the traders.
Grafting and budding are methods of asexual plant propagation that join plant parts making them grow as one plant. KIRF trained 70 master trainers including 28 men and 42 women in grafting and orchard growing techniques. Using these master trainers, a total of 522 community members including 275 females & 247 males were given the new capacities. They planted more than 1,750 fruit plants & grafted nearly more than 3,400 plants in the area. The scions were provided by the local farmers while the plants were provided by KIRF.
Kitchen Gardening Training
Post-earthquake, the agricultural land came under heavy invasion of shelters and housing thus limiting the agricultural capacity in Azad Kashmir. The remaining patches of land were used for cultivating major crops such as wheat and corn, leaving little space for vegetable needs. The small places outside the focus of the main agriculture could now be used for kitchen gardening to produce varieties of vegetables.
Grafting of fruit trees, transferring skills to 2nd generation plantation of fruit plants
Therefore, to fill the gap, 200 women were trained in kitchen gardening in Sari Awaira area. The water schemes built by KIRF offered an additional opportunity to the people to start kitchen gardening. Vegetable seeds and on-farm guidance was provided to the participants. The activity not only enhanced access of the families to fresh vegetables but at the same time, increased saving in their family income and their nutrition level.
The local production would generate income of the growers and also many other segments connected with transportation and marketing of vegetables. It was expected to directly and indirectly impact the lives of more than 5,000 people of Sari Awaira.
Case Study of Ms Naseem Akhtar
I am Naseem Akhtar, wife of Mr. Mohammad Jamil, a resident of village Chatter No. 2, Union Council Dhrey, Bagh, AJK. I am in my early forties and a mother of three children. I was married 18 years ago when my husband was working as a labourer at a petrol pump station who brought home a small salary barely enough to maintain the two of us. Over time, with prices increasing, rising expenditure at home and fees of children at school, we were finding it impossible to maintain our family and keep our children at school. We were worried about how to deal with the situation and were looking for a way out of the difficulties we were facing. Then, we heard about the Vocational Training Centre of KIRF being run in the area.
I visited the centre to find out about the type of training being offered. I found the skills interesting and entered into a two year training course. By the time I had completed the training, my husband had lost his job which gave us more worries. So I decided to use the vocational skills I learned to support the family. I joined a private vocational training school as a teacher and also started sewing and stitching the clothes at home. Now I am earning around Rs. 4,000 per month from that helps me to meet the family needs, including the educational expenses of my children.
As I look back and think that had there been no skill training opportunity in the area and me not having received it, what could have happen to the family after my husband becoming jobless? I ask myself if it was possible for the family to survive in the new situation, was it possible to keep the children at school? The answer would have been no.
The availability of the KIRF facility in the area and my decision to receive the training gave me new hope and helped solve our woes. I owe to Allah for helping me to make a right decision and, to KIRF for extending the facility in the area that averted our miseries and made it possible to keep our children at school.
|
