Skill Development Project for the women from marginalized communities is an important aspect Sakshi’s implementation work. Skill Development/Vocational training units of Sakshi are the centers to make the women and the adolescent girls with poor socio-economic background to become self-empowered. With that, objective Sakshi is imparting skill development training through its various centers situated at Jasola, Chadanhulla in South Delhi, Udyog Vihar & Dundahera in Gurgaon, especially those, who lost jobs during/due to COVID-19. This is a step to help these people restore their livelihood and support their families. To achieved this goal, Sakshi from support of CAF India and Rio Tinto has implemented the “LIVELIHOOD AND COMMUNITY SUPPORT SERVICE PROJECT” for the communities. The goal was to support the beneficiaries in developing their socio-economic conditions by imparting stitching and tailoring training with a job placement to each trainees. The focus was on the women beneficiaries.
This project contributes to access to sustainable livelihoods and strengthened the resilience of, underprivileged communities in Gurugram. This project aims to support underprivileged individuals who are engaged in / willing to start their career in garment industries as an income generation activity. The Sewing Machine Operator course helps them to increase their income to support their families. This project was initiated in 2020, and so far has been trained and placed more than 450 beneficiaries from diverse geographic and underprivileged communities. Recently the batch no 6th have been graduated and placed in May 2022 in which a total of 26 beneficiaries were enrolled.
As per the information collected through baseline survey of the trainees, 42% beneficiaries.
belong to Uttar Pradesh, 38% belong to Bihar, 12% are from Jharkhand and 4% each are from Gurgaon (Dundahera) and Rajasthan.
As per the collected information, the beneficiaries economic condition was very poor – 38% of Beneficiaries didn’t have sustainable employment so they earn below 1 Lac annually and rest 38% Beneficiaries’ family income is below 1,50,000. These people belong to migrated families mostly and due to weak financial conditions they wanted to learn stitching and wanted to get placed in garment sector to financially lift their families out of poverty.
The Methodology that Sakshi followed for this project was –
COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION –
Community Mobilization starts with the mapping of different localities, post their identification our mobilization team visits and tries to identify the socioeconomic conditions of the community residing there defining the clusters accordingly.
After the defining of the areas different mobilization strategies are listed down apart from the regular mobilization activities. Mobilization is done as per the defined plans. On the last working day of the month, overview of all mobilization activities is done to identify the flaws and improve the same in upcoming months.
SELECTION AND ENROLLMENT
The interested candidates visit the Centre. The enrolment of the beneficiaries is based on the information gathered through one to one interaction done at the Centre. The counselling is done, to understand their employment need, financial conditions and willingness to take up a job. If they were found eligible as per the selection criteria, they were admitted to the course.
ORIENTATION OF THE STUDENTS
After completion of the procedure of enrolment of participants, on the 1st of May, An orientation of the program was given to all participants comprising a brief description and objective of the course. After then, the Participants also introduced themselves as well as they told others their background history and purpose to get enrolled in the course.
Ms Krishna (trainer) made all participants aware of the importance of skill development of tailoring and how it’s instrumental in improving employability and opening up income-earning opportunities as well as having a long term positive impacts such as reducing gender inequality and poverty as well as empowering women to take socially and financially independent.
TRAINING (Sewing Machine Operator)
Sakshi, CAF India & Rio Tinto Livelihood Centre, Dundahera, Gurugram provides Sewing Machine Operator Course to participants who are in search of livelihood in Garment Industry. Through this course participants learn basics of sewing including types of needles, threads,
and stitches as well as they learn operations and adjustment of Loc kstitch Sewing Machines.
As we already know, in garment factories garments are made from the fabrics following a chain of process like all parts of stitching is done by combining the different garment components. So as a Seamster, It is essential to know and practise the various types of stitching parts that’s why, participants are taught to make different part of stitching such as Sleeve Placket, Cuff Making, Collar, Pocket (V-shape, Round), Pintex, Cuff (Simple, Cut & Run) as well as Straight Stitching, Circle and Square stitching was also taught them as per the demand of garment industry.
On the first day of the stitching course, all participants are provided with an overview of the apparel industries and their production flows as well as they are given knowledge of sewing machines. On the second day, the participants get knowledge of sewing, including types of needles, threads, and stitches and they also start getting a hold on the sewing machine.
On the third day, participants are asked to practice on paper by using thread as well as they are told about the parts of the machine. On the fourth and fifth days, participants practice straight stitching and topstitching. On the last two days of the first week, participants learn about circle stitching as well as they practices on cuff and collar finishing. In the 2nd week of the course, the participants were given knowledge of Lockstitch Sewing Machines, performing basic operations and basic adjustments.
Along with stitching course participants are given training of the basic workplace Etiquette such as correct sitting posture, how to introduce with other employees and the way of talking to supervisors and seniors.
PLACEMENT
The Placements of the graduated students is an on-going activity. Job opportunities are provided to the recent pass-out students. Students are placed in garment companies. Below mentioned are the names of the companies in which the participants are successfully placed.
- Krishna Label
- Orient Fashion
- Richa Global
- Modelama
- Orchid
- Filament Fashion
- Pearl Global
The job role they have got is a sewing machine operator in which they are responsible for taking measurements, fixing accessories etc and the salary range for the majority of workers in Sewing machine operations is from Rs 8,000 to Rs 11,105 per month at the start of the job.
Most of the participants came from underprivileged communities surviving on a basic household income, and have faced a lot of adversaries and challenges throughout their lives. Their enrolment and completion of the course highlight their determination and dedication as well as helps them to succeed and financially lift their families out of poverty.
To Elicit the participation of the community in all the programs have been one of the most important strategies of Sakshi to aim towards sustainability, we ensure a proper system of support from experiential learning to job placements at Garment factories and have been able to successfully achieve 100% placement rate. These women now will enjoy their financial freedom as well they will be the support to their families which indirectly benefitting nearly 1000 people. These centers are sponsored by Rio Tinto.
