Women are an integral part of society. A society can not be termed a developed society when development of even a single woman is left. A woman plays multiple roles at a time and our organisation “Safal Society" aims to bring about the advancement, development and empowerment of women so that they realize their full potential. Consequently, the access of women particularly those belonging to weaker sections including Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes/ Other backward Classes and minorities, majority of whom are in the rural areas and in the informal, unorganized sector – to education, health and productive resources, among others, is inadequate. Therefore, they remain largely marginalized, poor and socially excluded.
Under our women development programme we focus particularly on:
1. Women education:
We will ensure equal access to education for women and girls. Majority of women and girls from weaker sections including Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes/ Other backward Classes and minorities; majority of whom are in the rural areas and in the informal, unorganized sector left illiterate because of gender discrimination. Special measures will be taken to increase enrolment and retention rates of girls and women coming from these sections.
2. Capacity building of women through trainings and Income generation programmes:
These programmes target empowerment of women. Its Overall objective is: To increase household income, reduce malnutrition in children and improve living conditions in rural and isolated communities, cut off from their sources of employment and social services, through the empowerment of women as wage-earners and the creation of jobs.
Specific Objectives of income generation programmes :
(a) To provide women with vocational training in tailoring, dairy-farming and craft and managerial and technical capacity building to enable them to run a business; (b) To provide women with basic equipment to start a job and support them to become organized in community-based working units to effectively manage and run their businesses; (c) To establish women’s associations in tailoring, dairy-farming and crafts to represent women’s interests, provide them with technical, administrative and logistical support and promote their products in the formal market.
Under our income generation programmes targeted women will be benefited in following ways:
(a) Targeted women will develop skills in tailoring and dairy-farming, matching standards to satisfy market demands, as well as managerial and technical capacities to run a business;
(b) Targeted women will be provided with equipment and, organised in community-based working units, which will cover all fields of production and marketing, so that they will be able to effectively manage their businesses;
(c) Few women’s associations will be established and will take over the overall management of the working units representing their interests, offering them technical and administrative support and marketing their products;
(d) Women can establish their own businesses to generate a basic income for their families.
3. Microfinance:
In order to enhance women’s access to credit for consumption and production, the establishment of new and strengthening of existing micro-credit mechanisms and micro-finance institution will be undertaken so that the outreach of credit is enhanced. Other supportive measures would be taken to ensure adequate flow of credit through extant financial institutions and banks, so that all women below poverty line have easy access to credit. This action is taken by keeping in mind the exploitation of women by local moneylenders.