How can 24 hours be enough for 50% of the world population? This is a fair question to ask, but using this argument to dismiss International Women’s Day would be both myopic and disrespectful. Truth be told, organisations and agencies that work on women do not see March 8 as a one-day affair, but more as a celebration of all the work that they do every other day of the year. On International Women’s Day, EastMojo spoke with organisations and development agencies backing their March 8 celebrations by ensuring meaningful, sustainable and long-term women’s empowerment. From digital to tea, from livestock to handloom, organisations working with rural women are going to great lengths to ensure that rural women’s future is better than their past.
Never a one-day affair
“The best way to ensure that Women’s Day celebration is not a one-day affair is by recognising and appreciating their contribution to their family, society and the country. Also, another way is to understand the needs, aspirations and challenges women face in various spheres of life. Finding appropriate solutions to address those issues and challenges is also a sustainable way of celebrating Women’s Day every day,” said representatives of the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF).
Similarly, a representative of The Goat Trust (TGT) stated that “The celebration of womanhood is not just a matter of one day. It is something to be celebrated throughout the year by on ground effort for upliftment, equality and economic empowerment.There are various challenges across the globe for woman which needs to be understood, analysed and resolved .’’
“To ensure that the spirit of International Women’s Day permeates throughout the year, we must adopt a multi-faceted approach that addresses both systemic and individual barriers to gender equality and women’s empowerment,” added representatives of the Grassroots Tea Corporation (GTC). Technical agencies like Grassroot Team Corporation Limited, anchored by American India Foundation Trust, works with rural women entrepreneurs (RWEs) and small tea growers (STGs) in the Tea Value Chain in Karbi Anglong and Nagaon districts of Assam.
To do so, GTC says, we must Provide women with access to resources, training, and opportunities for entrepreneurship and economic independence. Supporting women-owned businesses and initiatives strengthens the economy and enhances women’s autonomy and agency. “We must also develop a culture of inclusivity and gender sensitivity through education and awareness campaigns and cultivate work environments prioritising diversity, inclusion, and respect for all employees. Implementing flexible work arrangements, mentorship programs, and leadership development initiatives can empower women to thrive professionally and break through glass ceilings.”
“By working together to tackle issues such as violence against women, lack of access to healthcare, and limited educational opportunities, we can create lasting change at the grassroots level,” GTC added.
According to the Centre for Education and Communication (CEC), one effective approach is to integrate gender equality principles into all aspects of our work, ensuring that women’s needs and contributions are recognized and supported every day. “Additionally, providing continuous support through skill-building programs, access to resources, and advocacy for gender-inclusive policies, can help sustain women’s empowerment efforts. Ultimately, our ability to identify the everyday socio-cultural-economic barriers faced by women and fostering a culture of gender equality and empowerment in families, communities and institutions are key to making everyday women’s day,” CEC added.
“Through our various capacity building training and hands-on support which are programmed in a very systematic manner to shape rural women as rural women entrepreneurs (RWE), we always dream to empower women in a remarkable way. Livestock is a good sector for economic boost and we work on shaping our rural women to plug the gap for a sustainable economic future,’’ said The Goat Trust.
Real-life challenges are many, not insurmountable
You do not have to be a sociologist to understand the social factors that hinder women’s empowerment, and this is amplified when it comes to rural women. DEF says: “If we consider internet and digital access as a basic right for women empowerment, then the majority of women face the challenges in getting access to critical information, localised information, timely and appropriate information related to businesses, public schemes provisions, banking and financial resources related, market information, and information and content related to entrepreneurship building (the major challenge being localised language information and content resources). This denial and lack of digital resources for women is one of the most stumbling blocks in women empowerment today.”
GTC believes that access to capital remains one of the biggest challenges for rural women. “Women are facing challenges in accessing the necessary resources such as land, capital, and technical training required to start and sustain a tea business. Limited access to credit facilities and land ownership rights can further exacerbate these challenges. Deep-rooted gender norms and societal expectations constrain women’s ability to pursue entrepreneurship, particularly in traditionally male-dominated sectors like tea production and manufacturing. Limited educational opportunities and skill development programs create significant barriers to women’s entrepreneurship. Without access to quality education and training programs, women are lacking the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively manage a tea business and restrict women’s ability to reach potential buyers.”
CEC has a slightly different take on challenges faced by rural women. “There’s a fundamental lack of recognition of women’s equal contribution to households and communities. Without adequate support from family and society, many women find themselves confined to domestic roles, stifling their potential. Secondly, even when women strive for self-reliance and economic contribution, they face barriers within a gender-biased ecosystem. Thirdly, women are disproportionately affected by disasters, pandemics, and other unforeseen events due to the absence of robust support systems for their businesses. Reliant on natural resources, any disruptions such as delayed rainfall or climate changes can severely impact their livelihoods. These multifaceted challenges underscore the urgent need for comprehensive and targeted interventions to empower women, especially in rural areas.”
Even the material quality changes from rural to urban areas, making it more difficult for rural women to compete as equals. “In our handloom project, we’ve noticed a stark contrast in the availability of quality yarn between urban and rural areas. While urban regions have easy access to such materials, rural weavers have to travel far and make investments to procure access to quality yarn. As a result of this, rural women are left out of labour force participation, experiencing systemic challenges with respect to their economic independence and individual agency. In terms of skilling, most of the training facilities and centres for skill development are concentrated in urban areas which again cannot be routinely accessed by rural women making them vulnerable in the face of changing trends where skills need to be updated time and again,” CEC pointed out.
Representatives of TGT concur with those from CEC. “Lack of freedom, lack of confidence, multiple household and social responsibility, lack of access to capital, lack of skill are some of the biggest challenges faced by women. Though they have immense potential to contribute to the economy and overall upliftment of the society, it somehow gets hidden or shadowed by various challenges and lack of motivation,scope etc to overcome it.”
Beyond words: Ensuring sustainable empowerment of rural women
While words are essential and go a long way in encouraging women, they are just that: words. True empowerment only follows when strong words are backed by equally impactful actions. Take DEF, which works on bridging the gender digital divide and ensuring gender digital equality wherein women have an equal right and opportunity and access to information and opportunities in the digital space safely and securely to have a long-term sustainable impact. “DEF’s focus on women has led to designing a women-centric SoochnaPreneurship model which has been recognised by the World Bank in 2021. SoochnaPreneur is an entrepreneurship program by the Digital Empowerment Foundation which connects India’s rural citizens to information, rights, government entitlements and other necessary digital services. Since its creation, it has trained 25,000 rural women to further empower more than 5 million rural women in India. DEF is strongly committed to the idea that meaningfully connecting the unconnected groups and communities including women with communication and information technologies will end up benefiting the society at large.”
For CEC, this means supporting 1000 rural women entrepreneurs in the handloom value chain in Assam. “One of the striking features of the handloom sector in Assam is that it is mostly confined to women. By recognizing such a huge potential among the weavers in Assam, CEC has come forward to build the self-reliance and capacity of the women to manage and run sustainable handloom businesses. By providing capacity-building support and resources, we aim to strengthen their businesses, thereby livelihoods in the long term, enabling them to overcome adversity and continue to thrive. Initiatives are also being taken to build the resilience of women weavers against socio-cultural barriers through Entrepreneurship Development Programs, to facilitate the women to recognize such barriers and efficiently address the same, taking the families and thereby communities along in the process of unpacking gender biases/stereotypes that have been impeding women’s socio-economic mobility for ages,” CEC representatives added.
The GTC, which focuses on tea, seeks to emulate a model similar to that of the CEC. “The STG RWE program aims to showcase innovative and scalable enterprises involving 1000 women from small tea grower households across approximately 20 clusters in Rngmongve Block, Karbi Anglong District and Kaliabor Block, Nagaon District in Assam. These Rural Women Entrepreneurs (RWEs), will engage in the cultivating, manufacturing and marketing of traceable, chemical-free, natural, handcrafted, socially and ecologically sustainable, high-quality green tea,” GTC representatives added.
“The initiative seeks to create a business model that supports these women in generating sustainable income while promoting environmentally friendly and socially responsible practices in the tea industry,” GTC added.
For TGT, this initiative is something which will create a remarkable change in the ground level. “ We are aiming to build 1000 RWE which can set a benchmark in the history of livestock based women entrepreneurship,” TGT representative added.
No real empowerment without govt support
While it is clear that private agencies are doing a lot of work to ensure women’s empowerment, the same will never be possible without government support and backing. Organisations we spoke with believe the government can help women in many meaningful ways. “The monetary benefits provided by the Government for enterprise development should be monitored for impact assessment, followed by a consistent review of the policies in light of the primary objectives. Additionally, by prioritising women-led enterprises at the grassroots level, the government would be able to strengthen rural economies, in ways that can prove to be much more holistic and sustainable,” said CEC.
GTC, on the other hand, advocates, among other things, a greater role for women in decision-making processes. “(The Government must) promote women’s participation and leadership in decision-making processes at all levels of government and society. This includes measures to increase women’s representation in elected bodies, administrative positions, and corporate boardrooms, as well as the implementation of gender-responsive policies and programs.”
DEF believes that the government must also recognise “the diversity within the women gender vis a vis urban-rural; tribal- general; minority- non-minority etc”.
“Specific targeted programmes for these diverse groups within the women segment should be focussed on. More specific digital targeted interventions are required for women at various stages like basic, intermediary, advanced etc depending on their specific stage of need and development. Also, rather than having a fragmented approach to the issue of women empowerment, if all ecosystem players join hands to bring bigger and relevant changes, it would contribute to long-term sustainable changes in the lives of women,” says DEF.
Also Read: How The Goat Trust is building rural women entrepreneurs for life