UNNATVA | Women Empowerment

What does women empowerment look like in today’s context?

Indian women’s workforce participation currently stands at 37%, while this is a step up from the previous rate of 23%, much remains to be done. Concerted efforts are being made to create a supportive ecosystem for women to thrive and empowerment initiatives directed at skilling women to boost their career prospects and entrepreneurship training to help women establish successful businesses are integral to women’s development and economic independence.

Nearly 20% of enterprises in India today are owned by women seeing an increasing shift from women’s development to women-led development. India is transforming its socio-economic development status through women-owned businesses. An increased representation and participation of women in the business sector will lead to greater inclusion, innovation, job creation, and sustainable economic growth.

What is our approach towards driving women empowerment?

We understand that women empowerment initiatives cannot work in isolation and must be a part of mainstream development programmes that include and celebrate women. With women still juggling home and work responsibilities with little or no support, a space needs to be carved out that caters to their specific needs so they can achieve their dreams. At the same time, women must have a choice about the avenues they want to enter instead of limiting them to socially expected roles.

Our women empowerment initiatives thus cover a broad spectrum of programmes from skilling to entrepreneurship in the form of both women-only trainings and open to all trainings. Whether a woman chooses to be a solar technician or establish a food processing business is a choice we believe is the woman’s to make. Our responsibility is to offer that choice.

Many of our women participants have broken the glass ceiling and entered male-dominated professions as electricians, masons, or become financial consultants and entered the share market. Government policies too are now encouraging women in non-traditional professions with Solar, Green jobs, Artificial Intelligence, Drone Operators, all seeing high scope in India.

What are some of the courses that women have shown interest in?

Along with our regular courses in skilling and entrepreneurship, we regularly add new courses depending on the interest shown by women participants and the local potential of the region where the programmes are being conducted.

What have we achieved so far in our journey towards supporting women empowerment?

Through our skill and entrepreneurship development initiatives, we have reached out to women from Tier-II, III, and IV cities, as well as rural areas. These trainings are customised according to their specific needs and aspirations with a focus on identity building, leadership development and marketing and branding, which are core areas that complement domain-specific technical inputs.

In just the last 2 years, we have supported 500+ women to start and scale up their own businesses across domains of their choosing. These women have succeeded in building micro-businesses in food, retail, and digital marketing services.

Some of our highlights from our work with women are shared here.