Engage&Empower girls & boys for Girl Effect-India

Dear Donors,

Greetings from IDEA Foundation!!

IDEA skill development programs are in high demand now. We have trained 1340 women last year through the various vocational training programs. It is really amazing to see that even after attending just 3 months of training programs, women have become so confident and able to support their family financially. Those who were spending their lives in 4 walls started to do basic shopping and household chores independently. They themselves are surprised to see that even the small sums they make with their newly learned skills are enough to make a big difference in the attitude of people around them. We have started new centers this year. 

 Bella(name changed), is a  22-year-old woman. She got married by the time she was in 12^th and one year later she had a child.Her husband was working in a call center while she sat at home taking care of the child. She wanted to do so much more, that’s when she came across IDEA Foundation and the UMANG project. Having no idea how to do business or even realizing she has the capability to make a business out of what she learned, Bella attends her Basic Tailoring classes, she learned how to stitch blouses and other small tailoring knick-knacks which then helps her to set up a small business at home. The first thing she understood in the transition from being at home to going about outside is that she no longer needed her friends to tag along anywhere she went. She noticed how even the little earnings she was making was making a huge difference in their lives. Starting with being able to stitch her family’s clothes and do quick stitching of torn clothes, for which she always had to run to the nearest tailor and waste 20-50 rupees always. Now because of her newly acquired skills, her dependence on her husband has dropped tremendously. Grocery shopping, miscellaneous and gift shopping now comes out of her own pocket. A lot of people recognize her in the society, she feels accepted by the community after 4 years of being married and living in the same area. Since she earns about 50-120 rupees per order, her family is showing a keen interest in helping her go forward with doing Advance Tailoring Course. This obviously has upped her level of confidence in making monetary decisions for her home. Her husband has taken different loans, this way she is actively contributing to reducing the debt on their hands and she does understand sometimes money doesn’t flow in as much as it should, a few weeks can be very dry; but her confidence in herself has increased tremendously that it doesn’t affect her as much. She prides herself in the fact that she can finish 5 blouses in a single sitting; because of such speed and good stitching she has asked help from her basic tailoring teacher and wants to become more polished so that she can bring in more money. Bella hopes to uplift herself with nobody else’s help and move forward with the dreams of opening a small shop one day.

Thank you for helping us to make these women independent, and proud.