- Call us: 00977 (1) 4362560 / 4356679 (Office)
- support@vin.org.np
Project Overview
| Project | Women’s Empowerment |
| Start Dates: | 1st and 3rd Monday of each month |
| Language Requirements: | English (Basic Nepali is provided) |
| Food and Accommodation: | Nepali standard with host family in the working community, Jitpurphedi. |
| Key Activities: | working with women in the field, account keeping, awareness raising, technical skills, small grant writing |
| Beneficiaries: | women from disadvantaged community |
| Working Hours: | 4 to 5 hours a day, 6 days a week |
| Required Qualifications and Skills: | No formal training required, passion to work with women, flexible attitude |
Women’s Empowerment
“I was motivated to work in the women’s empowerment program, and I was very impressed with the goals VIN had helped the women set. I was able to aid the much needed new staff in gathering information about the current situation faced by each group, so they could focus on the present needs of the individual groups by giving them the attention they need. With the staff routinely checking up on all the groups to monitor progress and provide assistance in mitigating problems, I think future volunteers will likely be able to greatly help the groups when they come to volunteer for even a short amount of time…”
Andrew Schmelcher, Canada
Women’s Empowerment Program Volunteer
January 12 – February 26, 2009
Women’s Empowerment Overview
Working towards women’s empowerment enables you to support women in their pursuit of healthy and sustainable livelihoods. Women’s groups provide a forum for issues such as family health, women’s rights, access to resources, income generation, and other challenges faced by Nepali women in their daily lives. Volunteers have the opportunity to exchange ideas, collaborate in ongoing projects, teach basic English skills, help with small businesses, and be a positive role model to community women. You can also provide support in many other ways, depending on your skills and interests and the needs of the local community.
VIN invites all interested national and international volunteers to be part of our women’s development programs. Your small effort can make a big difference to women in the most marginalized communities! We do however request our volunteers to be flexible. It takes time to learn about the local women before you start your actual work and you need patience for that. You will be working with women of a totally different culture and lifestyle, so it is necessary to expect that your steps will work slowly but SURELY!
Volunteer with VIN in the women’s development program: teach women to be literate, skilled and empowered. Together let’s help women to leave their homes and experience the outer world!
Key Programs
- Education: literacy and awareness programs; taught by local women and overseen by women program expert
- English Language Fluency Programs
- Income Generative Skills Training: vegetable farming (organic and non organic), livestock, incense making, candle making, dry food making, etc.
- Saving and Credit: consist of regular monthly meetings in micro-credit savings groups.
- Women’s Health
Roles of Volunteers
- Working with VIN’s local staff to train women
- Helping women’s groups for account keeping
- Working with women on their farm
- Awareness raising activities
- Women’s rights
- Women’s health issues
- Life skills, e.g. leaderships skills, decision making, communication, problem solving, coping with stress
- Teaching English language to young women
- Developing small grant proposals to fund women’s empowerment programs
- Research for funding agencies and raise funds for local projects
- Helping to explore possible market for women’s products
- Research and case studies on women’s programs