Aiming to promote entrepreneurship and create new business opportunities for local women, Essar Foundation has been extending support to a stitching centre in Salaya. Most recently, it helped organize a two-day training program for 40 women-members of four self-help groups (SHGs).
Started a little over a year ago by the Wagheri Muslim Community Jamat, the stitching centre helps to develop skills and, thereby, improve the employability and livelihood options of the local women. Since the women are constrained by cultural norms that place restrictions on them going out of their houses, the stitching centre also provides a platform for socializing, in addition to serving as an outlet for their entrepreneurial spirit.
Salaya, with a recorded population of 34,000, is mainly a shipping village with most of the men away at sea for more than nine months in a year, leaving the women to look after the household.
The initiative was right for Essar, which is itself built on the spirit of entrepreneurship. Thus, Essar Foundation seeks to positively impact lives acting on the 3E framework — built on Entrepreneurship, Environment and Education.
The training sessions, held on October 16 and 17 in partnership with the Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development, also involved providing activities that were combined instruction with recreation, including learning games and the screening of a film, thus making the sessions interesting as well as informative. The training sessions served not only to strengthen the SHGs, but also instilled a sense of confidence, and provide a much needed direction to the initiative.
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| Essar Foundation inaugurates Salaya Stitching Centre |
