GIRL POWER Project
Capacitating CSOs for promoting women entrepreneurship TEAM GIRL POWER
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March 2022 | www.urbanupdate.in
omen empowerment is the key to achieve multidimensional, multifaceted, and multi-layered progress in a region. Developing entrepreneurship and making them financially independent are feasible solutions for empowering rural Indian women. Suitable enterprises for women will not only enable them to get better income, but to make them economically self-reliant. Around 80 per cent of the rural population in Jharkhand is dependent on the agricultural sector for their livelihood. The effective literacy rate in the Census 2011 of Jharkhand was 67.63 per cent with corresponding figures for males and females being 78.45 and 56.21, respectively. Moreover, at least 10 districts were below 50 per cent. It is estimated that 56 per cent of women, aged 15 to 24, are neither engaged in education, nor training or employment. Due to lack of female education, it is
estimated that beyond schooling, only 8 per cent of girls participate in some kind of training and only 0.1 per cent secure a vocational training diploma. The state has low level of success in creating women-based social entrepreneurship due to various reasons. Firstly, lack of education has been a major barrier. Secondly, there is a shortage of supportive ecosystems that can help women to become social entrepreneurs. Most community-based organisations and civil society organisations (CSO), working on a right-based approach, focus on getting employment instead of instilling a sense of entrepreneurship. The Girl Power project aims at capacity development of women beneficiaries turned entrepreneurs to contribute towards the benefit and well-being of their families. It tries to enhance the purchasing power, decision making, and dignity of women. The project strongly believes in the transformative approach for economic empowerment in new market conditions, while empowering women to adopt differential roles and internalise and manage the competition in the market. It is imperative to realise that training and handholding in women’s microenterprise promotion would need to address life-cycle issues that are cross-cutting along a spectrum of women’s market engagement because they affect women’s confidence and motivation, ultimately impacting sustainability of women’s empowerment through enterprise. It is necessary for gender sensitive-responsive women enterprise promotion. To promote social entrepreneurship among women and girls, CSOs may act as catalyst. Therefore, strengthening the ability of Indian civil society and its organisations to perform their role as independent agents of change, implementing actions that bring transformative change into the lives of women and girls is imperative. One of the distinctive components of the Girl Power Project which is funded by the European Union and implemented by All India Institute of Local Self Government in Jharkhand is capacitating the CSOs. Improvement and recognition of their work in the local area of operation
