Vegetable farming for poor women of 10 rural areas

Dear Donors,

Thank you very much for the initial support and helping us get our initial target of $ 5000 to attain a permanent spot on Global Giving. The organization has been working since 1994 and so far has benefitted more than 86000 direct beneficiraies through its interventions and programs.

In this project so far AWARD Pakistan has done the initial workings such as the areas interviews of the beneficiaries and the selection of the target areas. As discussed in the previous report the interviews from the 3 marginalized rural areas were conducted and Bilal Nagar, Tehsil Jhumra, Faisalabad was selected for the distribution of loan.

20 women (the deserving of all) were interviwed on December 01,2015 from the area Bilal Nagar,Tehsil Jhumra, Faisalabad. A group of 5 women has been has been selected from the 20 interviwees and a business development training was conducted with the Business group to improve their knowledge on managing the business.In the training they were taught about types of lands, types of vegetable farming,the process of venegtable farming, Book keeping and Money handing. The other 15 women who for some reason were not been selected for the loan were also invited to attend the training along with some other women so that in future they would be benefitted from the training.

At the end of the training a loan of Rs.60,000 was given to the 5 women so that they could get a land on contract basis and start growing the vegetables. The selection of land is under process as the 5 women with the help of their husbands are looking for a suitable land which should be somehow closer to the village (Bilal Nagar) to have easy access. In this regard the negotiations are going on with few land owners and the it will soon be finalized. With the selection of the land (which is expected to be done at the end of Feb 28,2016)  the 5 women will start the vegetable farming and that would be mentioned in the next report which is due in May,2016.

Links:

• http://awardpakistan.org/

Dear Donors,

Thank you very much for your kind support and helping us reach our initial target of $ 5000 to earn a permanent spot at Global Giving. AWARD Pakistan has been working from the last 21 years in community development and so far has been able to support approximately 85,000 direct beneficiaries and nearly 500,000 beneficiaries indirectly. Our efforts to improve the life of marginalized communities’ especially rural women are still going effectively through number of interventions in the rural areas of Pakistan.

Since the funds took a little time to transfer because of the formal procedures. AWARD Pakistan has started primary workings on the given project. As discussed in the description of the project the organization wants to initiate a business model for poor rural women of 10 areas based on organic and commercial kitchen gardening to transform the low income women lives from poverty to prosperity.

Women Vegetable Clubs (WVC) is an idea to club rural women for collective entrepreneurship through organic commercial kitchen gardening. As the project is highly sustainable therefore it will be initiated from 1 rural area and will move towards the next 9 areas after the completion. 

Initial Workings so far:

AWARD Pakistan conducted a survey in three of the selected areas of District Faisalabad. The 3 areas were Bilalnagar, 24 Lahoriyan and 157 Gojra in Tehsil Jhumra of Distrcit Faisalabad. .The animators (contract workers appointed by AWARD Pakistan to support rural communities) conducted the survey. The sample size of the 20 women in each area was taken. The animator along with the team made a door to door visit and interviewed the beneficiaries. Overall 60 rural women participated in the survey. There were No. of Simple questions which were asked in the questionnaire. The main purpose of the survey was to inquire about the need of the area and the interest of the beneficiaries. AWARD has already established Women Groups in the areas therefore it was not challenging to look for the women who are currently involved in any type of agricultural farming.

As the result of the surveys conducted in 3 above mentioned areas Bilal Nagar, Tehsil Jhumra, Faisalabad is selected as the target area to implement the project. According to the project the agricultural loan of Rs. 60,000 will be given to 5 women to get a piece of land on contract to grow vegetables. The area's population is nearly 3,500 with 80% of the residents are Muslims and 20% are Christians. The area is located in one of the Tehsil(Suburb area) of District Faisalabad called Chak Jhumra.The living standard of Women in the area is quite low as majority of the women population is uneducated and works either as a housewife, brick kiln worker or in the farms with no or very less wage.

The final interview is scheduled to be organized (Dec 1,2015) for the selection of 5 most deserving women from the 20 women of Bilal Nagar. As AWARD Pakistan has received funds now (Thanks to Global Giving). Therefore the loan distribution is scheduled to take place on Dec 10, 2015 and will given to the 5 most deserving women. But before that AWARD Pakistan will conduct business startup training with the 5 women (December 7, 2015 to December 9, 2015) on management of the business. In this training, they will be told about the ways to improve their business and how to manage the money in the business. As majority of the women are uneducated therefore the trainers will keep it as simple as possible to make them understood.

Hopefully, this will be covered in the next report of February, 2016 

Links:

• visit our updated website for our work and community services