March 07 2016, 15.00 PM IST || Pocket News Alert
In India, women empowerment has different connotations. In rural India it is quite different compared to the urban areas. The socio-economic empowerment of women is a prerequisite for development of the society. Cairn India identifies and understands the importance of skill development and access to employment opportunities. It is committed to enhance the social status of rural women in its operational areas. The company has been consistently working towards initiating programmes for regular mentoring and creating opportunities for their overall socio-economic enhancement.
In alignment with the government’s Skill India initiative The Cairn Enterprise Centre (CEC) provided skill training, career counselling and linkage to employment opportunities to over 12,000 youth including women since 2007. Barmer District with its low literacy rate, lack of quality education and poor community awareness are contributing to unemployment, poor health and low income in the region. While Cairn India has triggered economic growth in the region through its operations, it has also enabled large scale community development to ensure inclusive growth. Through the Cairn Enterprise Centre (CEC), various income generation activities have also been introduced to empower women. CEC also provides financial support to help these women start their own businesses.
One such example of the impact of CEC is that of Chanchal Jain from conservative family aspiring to carve her own identity at a very young age. CEC helped Chanchal along with other youth of Barmer trained for entrance test of HDFC bank which is one of the largest private banks in India. In a month long course, they were not only taught aptitude, numeric ability and English proficiency but their personality was also groomed to make them ready for corporate life. Post the training at CEC, Chanchal was immediately selected by HDFC and today she is progressively climbing the corporate ladder and has now become a role model for many girls of her age in Barmer.
Breaking the barriers of gender roles is the Masonry training initiative by cairn in the region. In a move away from the usual vocational training courses for women such as sewing or craft-making, Cairn India has empowered 50 women to be trained masons. The masonry training proved to be a great boon for Soni Devi, a 28 year old widow at Bhimda village in Barmer. As a value addition all the women participants of the masonry training are also being made literate through a special provisional literacy programme specifically designed for them. This ensures that after completion of the training, the women are not only financially independent but are also empowered to face new challenges. Today, Soni and other inspiring women masons are now helping to build toilets as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
Surasaniyanam is a remote village in East Godavari district in coastal Andhra Pradesh. Absence of requisite education and skills resulted in unavailability of sustainable livelihoods, increased migration and socio - economic challenges. The Ravva JV onshore terminal, operated by Cairn India, is the village’s first and only tryst with industrialization.
As part of its endeavour to make a positive difference in the lives of the local community, Cairn and Ravva JV has been actively involved in implementing community development projects in and around Ravva operational area. These initiatives have touched the lives of people across different strata of society by creating sustainable livelihoods.
Another unique initiative is -- The Suraksha brooms making unit, started in December 2014 with 6 women as direct beneficiaries. Today, about 120 poor households from the project area are tied-up with this brooms unit as raw sticks suppliers.
The Suraksha brooms and Suraksha Agarbatti making unit is touching the lives of community members in villages around Cairn India’s operational areas in Ravva. The project has helped women, who are the driving force of this business, to save money, live a better life and help educate their children.
Cairn India has also initiated the Dairy Development Programme in Barmer which has helped extend monetary benefits to villagers. Cairn India developed a model through which the dairy farmers would benefit and generate more income. Women are an important and integral part of the Dairy Development Programme. The programme helps women sustain their socio-economic status in the community.
In the remote, desert district of Barmer, farmers struggle to earn enough money to support their families. They raise a limited variety of crops and rarely introduce new innovation. Cairn's Barmer Unnati project, in partnership with TechnoServe, is working with farmers to introduce new crops and innovate new livelihoods.
Under this project, Leelawati, a village woman was introduced to Oyster mushroom cultivation. She sold 45 kg packed mushroom under the brand ‘Barmer Unnati’ to local hotels and restaurants and Barmer market and earned a profit of INR 3130 within a period of 60 days. Today, Leelawati feels empowered and elated that she is able to support her husband and contribute towards the economic development of her family.
Special focus has also been given to improve health, sanitation and general awareness among the women. Project Rachna stands for Reproductive and Child Health Nutrition & Awareness (RACHNA) and the single point agenda of implementing this project is to ensure woman and child wellbeing. The project is being implemented in three blocks of Barmer district namely - Baitu, Sindhari, Dhorimanna.
The project’s goal is to contribute to significant reductions in maternal and infant mortality, to improve menstrual hygiene and reproductive health of adolescent girls and women in Barmer district. Under this programme, Cairn India has helped the local self-help group to set up two Sanitary Napkin Production units in Barmer. Each of the manufacturing units is operated by a local women’s self-help group, who have been trained on the machinery and the process. At present a single woman can earn up to INR 50 per day and an average daily production of 750 sanitary pads per day and besides generating awareness on importance of better menstruation hygiene management among adolescent girls and women.
Further, contributing to the Government of Rajasthan’s initiative of “Beti Bachao Abhiyaan”, Cairn India has introduced one of its kind campaign to celebrate the birth of a girl child around the operational areas. Under this campaign, the company presents a “New Born Baby Kit” to parents of the baby girl born in government hospitals and institutions. This kit consists of a clean towel, two sets of dresses, socks, toys, a mosquito net, and an immunization check-list. What makes the kit unique is the message on how a baby girl brings happiness to the family. The campaign will allow to increase awareness on the importance of institutional delivery which will positively impact Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR).
Cairn India, through various unique initiatives, aims to encourage more women to cross social barriers and chart out a new future for them and their families.
SURAKSHA BROOMS MAKING UNIT
Ravva, S.Yanam, Uppalaguptam Mandal, East Godavari District
About Ravva:
Spread over an area of approximately 1400 hectares, Surasaniyanam is a remote village in East Godavari district in coastal Andhra Pradesh, with a population of about 5000. Absence of requisite education and skills resulted in rampant economic challenges, like unavailability of sustainable livelihoods, increased migration etc. Moreover communities in the village were not directly gaining from the economic growth set in motion by opening of Indian industry in 1990s.
The Ravva JV onshore terminal, operated by Cairn India, is the village’s first and only tryst with industrialization. Cairn, a leading independent oil exploration and production Company, has been exploring and producing hydrocarbons in India for over two decades. It has a proven track record of exploration discoveries and fast tracking them to production. The company from its three producing assets across the country now accounts for nearly 30% of the India’s domestic crude oil production.
As part of its endeavour to make a positive difference in the lives of the local community, Cairn and Ravva JV has been actively involved in implementing community development projects in and around Ravva operational area in S’yanam, East Godavari district. These initiatives have touched the lives of people across different strata of society by creating sustainable livelihoods.
Intervention and initiatives:
Cairn and Ravva JV have identified and developed local unused premises as a common facility to conduct brooms making activity. Team has identified poor interested women to engage in the brooms making economic activity with the help of village elders, women group leaders etc.
A series of briefing meetings have been organized with the shortlisted women about the activity, expected returns, commitment required etc. and finally shortlisted those women who have understood and accepted terms of working in the collective units.
A training programme was organized for 6 women in making 2 types of most sold products and facilitated an exposure visit to the existing unit in the other village. Initially the unit has procured brooms sticks from the private suppliers for higher price. And these middle men (suppliers) are found collecting small quantities of sticks from women and selling for higher prices in other villages. After analyzing the market situation team has come up with an idea to encourage local women to collect these brooms sticks and supply to the production unit.
The idea of promoting suppliers of brooms sticks (raw materials) within the project area was started with 3 households at Jallaivari peta (Hamlet of S.Yanam) and the suppliers increased tremendously in a very short period 3 suppliers to 120 suppliers. As of now these all suppliers earned INR 3.5Lakhs (approx.)
The brooms making unit has linked the with 3 bulk buyers supplying to Hyderabad market.
How many lives have we touched – Direct & Indirect
Suraksha brooms making unit was started in December 2014 with 6 women as direct beneficiaries making brooms at the unit. The project team has created suppliers of raw sticks with in the villages and grouped them into 7 clusters based on the locality. About 120 poor households from the project area are tied-up with this brooms unit as raw sticks suppliers and benefited indirectly from this unit.
Volume of business generated – earnings and impacts
Suraksha brooms unit is producing two types of brooms i.e. hi-tech and super tech model. These two models of brooms have good demand in the market. Currently the brooms unit is making production of brooms worth of Rs.50000/- every month and members are earning about Rs.1500/- towards their wages per month. In addition each member is earning Rs.1000/- towards profit which is saved in their bank account and shared proportionately every 6 months after allotting adequately for future business needs of the unit.
Impacts
• Now women have owned the business and they are leading day to day functioning of the unit and achieved almost self-sustained status
• About 120 very poor families who depend largely on seasonal agriculture and labor works are now able to effectively utilize their leisure time to earn by supplying raw sticks to the unit.
• Women are able to spend their earning for their children nutrition and for education needs.
• One intervention developed out of local advantage is now became a source of income and dignity for more than 100 families
• Since the raw material is locally available and market conditions favorably established for years, this activity has lot of scope for expansion and will continue to serve many local poor women as sustainable source of income for much longer period.
Quotes and endorsement from beneficiaries – Direct or Indirect
“Now I am very proud to say I am an owner of a business; before the initiative I use to go for harvesting works as labour, but brooms unit made me owner of the business, thanks to Cairn India”. - Pantadi Managa
“It’s our own business, and now we learned how to run this business, Thanks to Cairn India and FXBIS Team for all their support” – Karri.Nagalakshmi
“Cairn India gives a good income source to our community. All our community people are seasonal agriculture labor. During off season they don’t have any income source. Brooms Unit team motivated our people to collect brooms sticks, and developed area wise clusters of suppliers. I started our group with 2 suppliers and now there are 37 members in my cluster and they are earning for their weekly expenditure.” - Yallamalli Rani, Cluster organizer, Jallivaripeta
SURAKSHA AGARBATTI MAKING UNIT
Ravva, S.Yanam, Uppalaguptam Mandal, East Godavari District
Intervention:
FXBIS the partner NGO team has identified 5 needy, interested women to join the agarbatti collective enterprise after consulting the village key people and series of briefing meetings have been organized with the shortlisted women about the activity, expected returns, commitment required etc. to finalize the most appropriate, committed participants.
A suitable premise was hired for production, perfuming and packing of Agarbatti products. The team has procured machinery from Orissa, raw materials from Bangalore and packing materials from Sivakashi Tamilnadu. A simple system for procurement of materials is established with all the vendors. FXBIS has facilitated intensive training to the women for 6 days by an external trainer and an expert trainer from the FXBIS team has provided continuous inputs to the women during the production
Team has explored the local Agarbatti market including neighboring districts and identified potential buyers of raw Agarbatti as well as perfumed Agarbatti. Currently each woman is producing about 10 to 15KGs of Agarbatti every day. The raw Agarbatti buyers are coming to the production unit to buy the product. The perfumed and packed Agarbatti is sold in the retail market through a sales executive and currently Suraksha Agarbatti is sold in 300 retail shops in 5 Mandals of East Godawari District.
Suraksha Agarbatti unit has 3 types of products in the market i.e.
1. Single perfumed sticks small Box
2. Single perfumed sticks big box
3. All 3 types of perfumed sticks box.
How many lives have we impacted – Direct & Indirect
Suraksha Agarbatti making unit was started in March 2015 with 5 women as direct beneficiaries for making agarbatti. Later two more women joined due to product demand increased in the market. Presently total 7 women are engaged in production and packing on regular basis.
Volume of business generated – earnings and impacts
Total no of 7 women are involved in production and packing and each of them is earning average of Rs.1500 per month towards their wages plus profits of average Rs.1200/- per head per month. Now the unit’s production is reaching the optimum per month. The Suraksha Agarbatti has achieved highest placement in the market in very short time and the feedback from the users is very encouraging. The unit will be able to reach its break even soon and there is lot of scope for expanding the business and number of women beneficiaries.
The unit has surely increased the confidence and dignity of women engaged. No they are able to spend their own earning for their children nutrition and education needs.
NGO Partners
FXB India Suraksha has solely implemented this intervention with the technical support of existing Agarbtti making units at Chirala and Pondicherry Yanam .
Quotes and endorsement from beneficiaries – Direct or Indirect
“Initially I thought that I went to work in some other Agarabtti Company, but slowly I realized that it is my own unit and worked with joy” - Thanks to Cairn India for the support”. J.Kanaka Durga
“I am very happy now, before this unit was started, I was spending idle at home. Now my time is effectively used to make good earnings and my income is very much useful for my children and family. I am very happy. – Thanks to company- D. Baby
“Cairn India is giving very good opportunity to all of us to develop” – A.Durga bhavani
