500 women need dignified livelihood to rise !

Dear Global Givers,
 
It gives us immense pleasure to update you that in the last quarter we have expanded to
additional geography to provide stitching training to rural women through your support. More
than 500 rural women are being provided with advanced skills of stitching to help them
become economically independent. The initiative is not only empowering the women but also
helping in replacing the usage of the plastic bags with a cloth bag and in saving the
environment. 

 In India, the participation of women in the labor market is extremely low with a total
workforce participation rate of women being 25.5% (India Census 2011). In some parts of
rural India, this number can go as low as 10%.

The low ranking at the Gender Gap Index is due to various challenges faced by women across
India. These challenges include the restricted mobility of women, wage discrimination,
involvement in other non-paid labor work, etc. Women are also denied access to livelihood
opportunities due to societal norms and patriarchal structures. 

Women in India have been systematically excluded from higher education, vocational
training and as a result remunerative work and employment. Families and households give
greater priority to the education and training of boys creating a vicious cycle whereby girls
and women are consistently denied the bettering of their work and employment prospects. A
way to break this vicious cycle of denying women their rights is by creating the training and
development opportunities for resource-poor women.

 iPartner India through its projects in Rajasthan and Bihar have started three training and
livelihood centers for the resource-poor women. The women at the centers are provided with
basic and advanced stitching skills with the help of qualified trainers. They are also provided
with initial raw material for the training. Women at the center are now able to stitch eco
–friendly cloth bags, file/laptop cover, table mats, and bathroom slippers, etc. Through a
separate training session, they are also being oriented on entrepreneurship opportunities,
financial management, and garment industries in India. 

iPartner India believes that when more women work, economies grow. Women’s economic
empowerment boosts productivity, increases economic diversification and income equality in
addition to other positive development outcomes.

We look forward to your continued support to bring more women in the labor workforce and
to make them economically self-reliant. Your support will ensure continued training and
opportunities to connect women with market linkages. 
 
Through your generous support, we together can certainly help these women become self-
reliant, attain income & gender equality along with the vocational skill. 

Forever in gratitude for your support,

iPartner India Team