In rural India, women often face numerous challenges in accessing education and employment opportunities. Traditional gender roles and societal expectations place a heavy burden on women to prioritize domestic responsibilities and caregiving duties over their own personal and professional aspirations. 

Even when women manage to attain an education, they often face discrimination or have limited job opportunities in rural areas. Despite rural industries such as agriculture and handicrafts offering employment for women, lack of skills and training is a common issue. 

Tapping into homemakers 

The main contributors to this are poor awareness and affordability. Even if rural women are aware of the skill and vocational training programs, the cost of these programs may be prohibitively expensive. 

In traditional rural households, the housewives depend on traditional work like housekeeping, fishing, and selling fish to earn income. Some of them do casual labor work which gives them negligent income that is not sufficient to upgrade their living standards. 

These are the women from the underprivileged community who are capable of achieving great heights. 

Understanding this, The Bumeric India Foundation, a non-profit organization, wanted to reach the women and offer them vocational skill development through appropriate community mobilization and capacity building to equip them for wage/self-employment.

The organization has dedicated its efforts to empowering women and promoting gender equality. The foundation was established with the aim of creating a more just and equitable society by focusing on education, healthcare, economic empowerment for women, disaster relief, and more. 

Enabling sustainable livelihoods

One of the foundation's key initiatives is its women's empowerment program, which provides training and resources to help women in rural areas develop the skills and knowledge they need to become financially self-sufficient. Through this program, the foundation offers vocational training programs and mentorship opportunities to help women start their own businesses and pursue economic opportunities. 

Due to the lack of awareness and formal vocational training facilities, homemakers were unable to create mimicro-enterprisesn in a profitable manner. Their primary focus was earning something to ensure daily meals for the family. Through ground-level research, the organization understood that even if women tried a new job or business, they lacked the skills and marketing support. 

Eventually, Buimerc mobilized the women and offered them vocational skill development which equipped them for wage/self-employment. The training included a tailoring skill programme whthatllows women to earn from the comfort of their homes. 

Sufirath is one of the trainees who benefitted from the Women Empowerment Programme sponsored by AVT McCormick and implemented by the Buimerc India Foundation. For her, landing a job after completing her degree was only a dream. She never imagined it would come true. But that was until she joined the training program. 

She says, “It gave me the confidence to start my tailoring unit. Five of us who got training from Buimerc India Foundation have together started the business and regularly take orders for stitching clothes. The course not only trained us in tailoring but also entrepreneurship.” 

With the new-found skills, Sufirath has launched another venture and pursued her passion – baking. 

To date, 90 women have been trained in this program the areas covered include parts of Western and Central Kerala.