Providing free educational & vocational training programs for poor and needy women and older girls
It has been our vision right from the beginning to create a free job skills training program for women and older girls, so that they can develop skills that can carry them through their lives and make their lives better and more secure.
In rural areas of India, girls and women have been traditionally left out of education. Boys are generally favoured when a family can invest in giving an education to a child in the family. As a result, women rarely have job skills. When a disaster strikes a family, and a husband’s income is lost - or a woman is widowed - the woman and her family are often left destitute.
Even when a family is intact - women are traditionally allowed very little independence in rural India. They marry and look after the family, but often end up feeling isolated, and with decreased self-esteem, as they realize they have very little choice, and are dependent on men for everything in their lives.
Open Hands Education Trust has created a free educational and vocational training program to offer women and older girls a path to a practical education that will give them skills to support themselves and their families, as well as offering emotional support and self-esteem building, while they train together in a six-month program.
At this time the vocational education program offers skills in sewing and tailoring, and we hope to increase options in the future. Sewing and tailoring skills enable women to work from home and sew for local families, do piece-work at home for a businesses in a local town, find employment in a shop in town or start teaching other women to sew. Some young women have set up their own sewing training centres in other villages, when they move to a new village after marriage. Others work together in units in their village, and continue to support each other as a group.
You can help by donating to pay for the salary of the sewing teachers in the program, with the purchase new sewing machines and the cost of maintenance of the class machines, with purchasing fabrics and sewing materials, and with the cost of giving each woman a basic sewing kit with scissors, thread, measuring tape etc.
In the future we would like to be able to offer a sewing machine at a reduced cost to program graduates, or be able to offer them a small micro loan to buy a machine. One sewing machine costs about $160 Canadian.
CELIA FULLER - AUSTRALIA
Celia Fuller was part of the initial start-up and vision behind the creation of the Open Hands Education Trust’s women’s sewing training program. She and her husband Grant gifted the first sewing machines for the Open Hands sewing program to Jhulan and Pratigya as a wedding gift in 2016. (06/03/2017). This Australian couple are like precious relatives to Jhulan and his family. They are fondly known as “Momma Celia” and “Uncle”. Celia has indicated that she would like to continue to support the sewing program and to contribute towards the salary of the sewing teachers at Open Hands Education Trust.
Celia's Comments After Donating A Sewing Machine
“After giving a sewing machine to Sima - who learned to sew through the OHET program - I was thrilled to hear that she was training other women in sewing skills. When she moved to her husband’s village after her wedding, she started her own micro business of teaching sewing skills. Her small income helped her manage some trying times when her new husband was away in a distant city looking for work. She had babies to juggle, and a very low income to survive on, yet she used those precious sewing skills to keep pushing forward. All this was done with her non-electric, pedal-powered singer sewing machine! I never realized just how powerful the gift one sewing machine could be.”
