Livelihood Promotion of Marginalised Slum Women

Women from the slum area of Trivandrum has been receiving several skill based training for finding their source of income since pre pandemic period. They have been trained for manufacturing cloth bags, paper bags and also had introduced customised paper bag with the training in screen printing. The products of the women were creating a revolution in market as they introduced high quality commodities under low price tags.

Since the outbreak of pandemic the marketing style across the market has evolved and parcelling services popped up due to the restrictions of government as part of Covid control protocols. There was a huge demand in parcelling covers from the side of restaurants and other take away counters where the people demanded food parcels because they were not allowed to sit at hotel for dining. The women had utilised this evolution as an opportunity with the help of Don Bosco Veedu Society. They came up with the new innovation of paper pouches in different size. Don Bosco Veedu Society has introduced the women from the slum area to paper pouched which can be manufactured in low cost compared to paper bags and cloth bags and can be used as food parcel pouched.

One day training session for women was organised by Don Bosco Veedu Society which was conducted in two batches due to the pandemic protocols. The session provided training for women in manufacturing paper pouches of size – Small, Medium Large. Small and medium sized paper pouches were aimed for parcelling food items whereas the large sized paper pouched targeted the textile shops which were running short of packing covers.

The pouches they manufactured were from high strength papers and as part of goodwill maintaining extra papers were used for creating a strong base area for the pouches so that the chances of tearing of paper pouches due to weight could be avoided.

The products were introduced to markets as soon as the training completed and women started manufacturing the pouches in large quantity. The production of pouches were pacing up since the manufacturing effort is low compared to paper bags and cloth bags which made the women capture the markets with their innovative product. The materials for the production and the training session expenses were met by mobilising the fund gathered from the GlobalGiving platform where the donors had helped the women in building a consistent income generating source.

India is currently facing the second wave of pandemic – COVID 19. The people all over Kerala is experiencing the strict lockdown due to the uncontrolled spread of the virus and the government with help of health workers are trying their best for controlling the disease. Due to the lockdown every marketing places has been shut and income generation activities are stopped until further notice. The women dwelling in slum who were engaged in the income generating activities now face an economic down fall because of the restrictions.

Don Bosco Veedu Society is currently supporting these women in the form of nutrition kits and medical kits. We provided around 235 nutrition kits which contained essential pulses and grains and medical kits which consisted of N95 masks, sanitisers, hand washes, mouth washes, vitamin tablets for the women and their families during this crucial situation.