UEnd Blog

POTW: Vocational Training for Women - Phase Two.

Project snapshot:

• Lives affected: 35,000

• Project cost: $10,000

• Dollars raised $5,102

• Dollars needed: $4,898

• Cause Sector: Economy - Gender Equality

Project Location: Chipursan/Pakistan 

Project Description: 

The Chipursan valley is located in north Pakistan at the border of Afghan Pamir. Three thousand people live in this remote area and suffer from a harsh climate, inaccessibility, limited cultivatable land, and a short growing season. With people dependent on subsistent farming, livelihood opportunities are very limited especially for women.

Currently there are eleven women’s organizations (representing 300 members) working with the women in the region, 30% whom are literate. Creating livelihood opportunities for the 1500 women remains the primary challenge of these organizations. The goal is to develop vocational training and production centers where women can learn how to use local resources to produce and market various handcrafts.

Each family owns several sheep and the production of products made from the wool of these sheep is a potential income generating activity for women. Traditionally women have been using traditional skills and rudimentary tools to make woolen jackets, caps and other products for home use.

The project aims to upgrade the skills of those women who are already producing woolen garments to put them more in alignment with market needs. This will require the use of improved technologies. Groups of 10 women from each village will be trained to create improved wool products with each village group focused on one specific product. Each group will be provided with basic tools and equipment who can then involve other women to establish a village level business.

UEnd:Poverty, in partnership with HiMaT Indigenous Leadership and Development Centretwishes to continue to assist Guatemalan women and their families in their growth and knowhow, enabling them to become self-sufficient, through education and their own, assisted business development efforts.

Your donations to this project initially touch the lives of a few but the ripple this causes affects generations. With projects like this it is easy to see how a little can turn into a world of difference for someone else and bring us steps closer to ending world poverty.

How can you help? Follow this project on the UEnd.org website and if you feel like this is something you’d like to donate to, please do. Or if you have a special occasion coming up like a family member’s or friend’s birthday, send them a UEnd gift card for this project.

Great news! UEnd sent final donations to two projects being run by HiMaT Indigenous Leadership and Development Centre. Both of these projects are located in Pakistan. Thank you to everyone who donated to these projects. We couldn’t have seen this happen without you!!

“Quick win” Projects in the Gojal villages - Visit the project page
Lives affected: 35
Project cost: $15,000
Dollars raised: $15,000
Dollars needed: $0!

Training, Coaching and Support Centre (module 4) - Visit the project page
Lives affected: 35
Project cost: $10,000
Dollars raised: $10,000
Dollars needed: $0!

From the HiMaT Indigenous Leadership & Development Program Fall Newsletter

In July of 2010 project partners developed a new work plan aimed at putting the HiMaT project back on its original course. In August of 2010, Pakistan experienced the worst flood disaster in the country’s history, a disaster that the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called “the worst disaster in the history of the United
Nations”.

The heavy rains that caused the floods first impacted the northern high mountain region. For at least three weeks, Hunza was cut-off from the world—an island in the midst of a vast inland sea that eventually flowed downhill and left millions of households and thousands of communities in southern Pakistan devastated and vagrant.

Again our project area was entirely cut-off. This time there was no road access at all from the north to the capital, Islamabad. Electricity, phone and Internet were out for three weeks. We had to postpone a scheduled field visit set for the end of September. And, to make matters even worse for the people of Gojal, the promised disaster recovery money was withdrawn.

What Now?

The flooding, along with the Hunza Landslide that occurred on January 4, have both turned our project areas from one where 70% of households were ranked as “poor” or “ultra poor” to one in which the entire population has been devastated, the local economy has been destroyed, and almost all households are ultra poor and struggling to help others that are even worse off than they are.

This November we will again try to launch our HiMaT area training and support centre, (which is partially operational now). Our goal will be to begin training programs during our fall visit and continue them in the spring. The opportunity has never been greater to build the strength of local leaders and local institutions and for using the shared problem of disaster recovery as a focal point for continuous improvement in community capacity for sustainable development.



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Click HERE to make a donation to any of the HiMaT Projects in Pakistan on the UEnd website.