Living Stone Ministry organization is doing many more skill development programs, which is mention below.
Income Generation Program:
The women living in Barakhama & Neighbor Village of Kandhamal District of Odisha have few opportunities for earning an income. Coming from conservative backgrounds, their families prohibit them from stepping out of the neighborhood without an escort. They are often dependent on the earning male members of the family. This makes their position extremely insecure. There are also many cases of deserted wives, young widows and women headed families. With little or no savings and no social security system in place, most women turn to moneylenders or pawnbrokers for loans in times of crisis. This may help temporarily but it increases their vulnerability in the long run as they have to pay exorbitant rates of interest. The formal banking systems do not attract the poor because of bureaucratic procedures and inflexibility of the banking system. As a result poor women do not have a buffer against emergencies and are impoverished further in times of crisis
The Livelihoods and Income Generation Program of the organization addresses these issues through three main interventions:
- Vocational Training
- Thrift and Credit Program
- Women’s Micro-enterprise Unit
Vocational Training to Youth:
Vocational training for skill up gradation of unemployed youth is one of the major activities of organization. This year eight St/Sc young women were provided training in tailoring for six months of daily three hours duration. These trainees were attached to self help group to obtain necessary credit from financial institutions to initiate self employed units for income generation
Awareness on Women Employment:
The program focused on creating awareness in the community on issues relating to the status, rights and problems of women. Its main objectives are to identify the needs of rural and poor women, to increase their active participation in decision making both in the family and community on development issues including atrocities on women and children. The Organization had surveyed the area for organizing awareness camp and preparing the targeted group. The program increased awareness among women on a set of selected topics so as to both inform and educate them. in this program we have call the Miss Reshma resource person of women employment from Pune , Maharastra . She thought the women’s and all the participate women’s got many idea; which will help them in near future to self employment.
Income generation training to Women:
During this year two Income Generation programs were conducted in Katagarda and Balliguda block in Kandhamal district. Where 42nos. and 60nos. respectively unemployed youths including women were participated. This program was designed with an aim of encouraging self employment, it imparted training and motivated potential and existing entrepreneurs to start new business or diversify and expand the existing one, it helped employment and wealth creation among educated unemployed youth, it was well equipped to face risks and challenges as an entrepreneur and it provided considerable human and material resource, importance for detailed planning and implementation. They were given training for starting their selected Self Employment project by availing financial assistance from commercial banks.