Initiatives for improving the employment conditions of rural women: the cases of Shah Kot training and income-generating and the Sungli income generating projects for women, Pakistan
Khan, N.S.; Shaheed, F.; Mitha, Y.; Rehman, S.
Rural development and women lessons from the field, Volume I: 117-136
1985
Document Number: 308536
This is a study of two income-generation projects for women located in Jhang District, Punjab Province, Pakistan. The first is a skill development-cum-income-generation project initiated in 1966, located in Shah Kot, a large diversified village which is no longer entirely dependent on agricultural activities for employment. The project promotes female employment in the traditional areas of embroidery and sewing. Production of handloom cotton cloth is encouraged. The second project was started in 1975 in Sungli, a much smaller village than Shah Kot, 3 km away. This project encourages date-leaf basketry and its marketing in urban centres. The two villages are under the influence of the same landed families and both projects were started by the same woman (an only child of one of the landed families). Despite these common factors, the Sungli Project has experienced limited growth, not reaching as many women as the Shah Kot. Its limited achievement serves to highlight factors contributing to the success of the Shah Kot or any other similar project; it emphasizes the importance of relating projects to the specificities of the socioeconomic milieu; and it draws attention to the in-built contradictions in development processes which often succeed in one area only at the cost of marginalizing others. The Shah Kot project has lasted over 17 years, during which time it has provided a means of livelihood to about 200 women, despite some marketing problems encountered. It has given the participants a sense of economic and social worth, a communal spirit and has contributed to increasing the status of women in their own households and the community. Its limitation has been its inability to lose dependence on one person; it has not opended up new areas of skill training; and it has inadvertently reinforced the seclusion of women. The Sungli Project has succeeded only in so far as some individual women have been able to supplement their agricultural income. It has not provided women more than their meagre wages as agricultural workers, nor has it raised their self-esteem.