Our goal is to ensure that every woman is socio-economically empowered and her basic rights guaranteed through a process of awareness, capacity building, linking them to their entitlements and working towards providing sustainable livelihood opportunities.
Domestic Workers Skill Enhancement Program
Domestic workers constitute one of the largest segments of the informal workforce in India. This segment offers many services for individuals and families through cooking, laundry, shopping, household maintenance and as care-givers to the children, elderly, ailing, disabled. Being unskilled or semi-skilled their work is not yet recognized as a trade or a profession and often get exploited by their employers.
CSA realized that that the status of the Domestic Workers can be improved through enhancement of their skills, with a view to add value in their place of employment and increase their own market value. Through various trainings the domestic workers are given inputs on Basic Etiquette and Telephone Manners, Housekeeping, Child Care, Basic Health Care, Home Décor, Fire Fighting, First Aid, etc. They are also made aware of their rights as domestic workers. The objective of these sessions is to empower the Domestic Workers through increased self-esteem and identity as workers capable of delivering a worthwhile and respected service.
Financial Empowerment Program
“Save for a rainy day” is often impossible for an informal / unorganized sector worker, or a class 4 employee for whom every day maybe a rainy one in terms of daily crises. Yet, if provided adequate support and motivation, these may be helped to form the life changing habit of saving.
CSA has formed a number of Women’s Groups in Mumbai, Thane (Dharavi Island – Bhayander West) and Raigad districts to enable them to understand their faulty financial thought processes and behaviors and to instill in them positive habits concerning basic banking, insurance and asset creation through Recurring deposits and Fixed deposits.
Financial literacy is used as a powerful tool in the hands on the vulnerable and marginalized to empower thoughts, attitudes, behaviors, finances and thus have an equal opportunity to access all means for the holistic development of self, family and community and at the same time protect themselves against vicious money-lenders and other unsafe financial practices.
Self Help Group
Most of the rural population living in Raigad and Thane (Dharavi Island, Bhayander – West) districts live below poverty line due to lack of self and economic management skills and livelihood opportunities. This leads to people living a hand-to-mouth life. Poor people are not able to come up in life alone and they need the support and cooperation of people living in the same community. We believe that development is a process of empowering the poor and marginalised so that they can access resources and create structures and systems to sustain them. In order to promote self-help and to eradicate the poverty, CSA along with its partner organizations identify 10 to 15 people living in the same community and form Self Help Groups (SHGs). A hamlet can have one or multiple SHGs depending on the population of the community.
The core objectives of these SHGs are;
· To enable the poor and marginalized to have access to micro-credit by savings and with bank linkages via enterprising SHGs.
· To empower the women and men to discuss about the problems and issues affecting their lives.
· To develop linkages with the Government departments and avail the due schemes implemented for the welfare and well-being of poor and marginalized.