Women empowerment has been identified as a key priority since the beginning of the project because women hold a decision-making role in farming families, both at the household nutrition level and for guar cultivation.
The Maalaga Social Foundation as part of its sustainable livelihood project for rural women distributed agricultural resources like seeds of various cash crops that need less water to local farmers in Gujarat, helping them in their livelihood as part of the 3rd Harvest with no expected rainfall. This help to avoid migration of laborers into the very densely populated cities of India.
The aim at Maalaga Social Foundation is to empower women through knowledge and skills development.
In 2020 when the novel corona virus or SARS-CoV-2 pandemic struck across India and all economic activities came to a halt, the lives of people from marginalised sections of our society were deeply impacted.
Our actions provide huge relief and sustainability during the pandemic:
Setting up of demonstration kitchen gardens and entry point activities. Then facilitating women to set up kitchen gardens and plant backyard trees for fruit collection
Assisting these cluster to share of surplus vegetables from their kitchen gardens between cluster families at far less than market rates.
Paper bags sustain income for rural women (Under women empowerment)
Maalaga Social foundation provides assistance and skills to create paper bags from a discarded newspaper with a unique folding techniques has led to securing the livelihoods of many rural women in rural areas with less rainfall and one 2 harvesting seasons in a year.
We collect old newspapers from various housing societies in Mumbai & Pune and bring them to the villages, together with a smart folding technique, some strings and glue to make eco-friendly bags. After production of these paper bags in quantities of 1000 per cluster each week we go out and pick up these paper bags after quality inspection and pay per bag to the cluster; little did these women realise the impact the our initial meeting would have on their financial security
Initiatives like these come into play that incorporates the women of rural India to manufacture a product and empower their livelihoods.
