Capacitating 2000 women (SHG leaders/Elected Women Representatives/Aanganwadi workers)
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with Department of Women and Child Development, Government of Uttar Pradesh endeavour to stop Gender Based Violence (GBV) by creating a non-violent (Ahimsa) gender friendly environment in 500 selected villages across the districts of Jaunpur, Sant Ravidas Nagar and Mirzapurpr.
The proposed intervention on Ahimsa Messenger has recently been promoted by National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) under the aegis of Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India. Department of Women and Child Development, Government of Uttar Pradesh seeks to promote the mandate of NMEW in the State of Uttar Pradesh by collaborating with the Swaayam project of UNDP in Eastern Uttar Pradesh that seeks to empower women by simultaneously working across key dimensions in social, economic and political aspects. The proposed intervention on Ahimsa Messenger seeks to build partnership between community leaders and government functionaries at village level in promoting a gender friendly environment through capacitating 2000 leaders of SHGs, elected women representatives and Aanganwadi workers/helpers on legal literacy, women based rights and entitlements and on scope of work under Ahimsa Messenger in each of the 500 identified villages.
The identified 500 villages are spread across six development blocks, namely City Block in Mirzapur district, Gyanpur and Abholi Block in Sant Ravidas Nagar and Barsathi, Rampur and Ramngar in Jaunpur district of eastern Uttar Pradesh. UNDP through its Swaayam project has been working in the above 500 villages since 2009. The project till date has mobilised more than 50,000 women into Self Help groups and have confederated them into six block level federations after rigorous capacity building. Besides these six federations, the Swaayam project has also mobilised women into 5 economic value chains, including dairy, carpet, craft, incense and pappadum. These value chains are now being managed by women themselves under producer companies.
Under the political empowerment component, the project has capacitated women on local self governance, transformational leadership and has been working with beneficiaries to increase their participation in public decision making through informed participation in village assemblies. To supplement and complement the efforts of women in ‘engendering’ village democratic institutions through informed participation and decision making, about 2000 women were capacitated on a wide range of women centric rights and entitlements. Based on a purposely drafted compendium and other literature, the training dealt with welfare entitlements for women, constitutional rights, family laws, labour and dowry laws and also on available remedial provision in case of violations of rights and many others. The purpose of these trainings was to increase the general awareness level of women on various rights and entitlements so that they can have informed participation in decision making at various institutional level.
With a need to spread the message of peace and also to support the victims of gender based violence, the proposed intervention seeks to build capacities of women leaders and government functionaries who could not only work on an agenda to promote the message of ahimsa but also can support a victim of GBV in an effective manner. The interventions seeks to go beyond a mere training exercise and looks to build a cadre of women with a specific mandate that can promote gender friendly environment in villages but also are practically trained to deal with the predicaments of a victim of GBV.