Apne Aap Organizes A Talk About Livelihoods And Income Generation Program

By 121 News Reporter

Chandigarh 25^th February:-- Apne Aap Women a charitable trust in India committed to work towards the empowerment of girls and women today organized a session titled ‘Brand Creation- Products that support survivors of sex-trafficking tomorrow’ with Nina Smith,  Executive Director GoodWeave, Dr Jean Baderschneider, leading human rights and anti trafficking activist and Mayank Mansingh Kaul, textile designer, talking about suitable alternative livelihoods to marginalized women, at the Apne Aap office. The discussion revolved around the efforts required to provide vocational training and formation of self help groups to achieve a better quality of life.

With the initiation of this new programme for sustainable livelihood enhancements, Apne Aap’s endeavor is to improve access to financial services' by facilitating capacity building. It operates through Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and focuses on organising women into such groups, while enhancing their access to finance.

Participating in the discussion Ruchira Gupta, Founder President Apne Aap Women Worldwide said, that many women and girls, who are victims and survivors of prostitution, have joined the movement of Apne Aap in search of livelihood options, by making products and crafts that can be sold to open markets. Some of these women who have been brutalized and traumatised for such long periods, don’t know how to make any products so the question is how do we build a movement around this and how do we sustain the changes we introduce in their lives? Also changing the condition on the ground is not easy as raising awareness about a brand that has social awareness takes time. The idea is to have conscious consumerism;  having a really great product helps but the key is to have something wonderful which will make people want to buy it and then create the brand.  

Nina Smith, Executive Director, GoodWeave asserted, that the important part of branding is that products with a brand vehicle for raising awareness about sex-trafficking. Seconding the idea Dr Jean Baderschneider, leading human rights and anti-trafficking activist added, that the focus should be on economic placement of women in a market, creating skills that help them to stay in the market for the time is how we should be looking at the next steps”.

Moderating the discussion, Mayank Mansingh Kaul added, that the idea to see how design can be applied to a given situation and help in finding solutions. It is very important to have an idea as a design for change through which we can spread awareness about the cause and provoke thinking in the minds of people. With the help of graphics, photos, designs we can create a movement and help Apne Aap create awareness about their cause.