Livelihoods

The Problem:
Increasing migration of male family members to work abroad has added to the problem by undermining the family structure without providing a viable avenue for women’s empowerment. Isolation and lack of opportunity to make decisions result in women accepting their lives as they are rather than as they can be, and prevents them from adjusting their roles to take on the greater decision-making powers needed in their changed society. 

What we do:
We have successfully developed and implemented a participant-directed human and economic development methodology. It creates situations that encourage aspirations and provides an avenue for women to realise those aspirations through independent decision-making and group consensus. These aspirations are not big demands. They are simply things, such as the desires of women to be treated with respect, to send their children to school, or access medical care.

This is an approach that encourages a process of self-discovery. While many development projects and approaches to women’s empowerment direct the participants to do things, this approach allows the participants to discover and utilise the assets and abilities they already have in their hands to improve their social and economic wellbeing. With this increased power of self-directed groups, they are able to achieve a higher socio-economic status and greater involvement in the local decision-making that affects their lives.