This S.T.R.E.E. (women empowerment) story has a young passionate Gopi Chavan, 29, as the central character in the success of an initiative launched by FINISH in 2023. A dynamic and enthusiastic individual, he completed his Masters in Social work from Nandurbar, joined the team in March 2021. However, his tenure was short-lived as he was selected for the prestigious District Magistrate (DM) Fellowship in Nandurbar, Maharashtra, just two months later. After completing his fellowship in October 2022, Gopi reconnected with FINISH to continue contributing to ODF+ initiatives in the Nandurbar block. When the program concluded in March’ 2023, Gopi decided to stay on, committed to working for the community he deeply cared about. His passion for research, WASH, and women’s empowerment has made the coveted S.T.R.E.E. program a success.
“Recognizing his dedication and drive, we reached out to him again when we rolled out the S.T.R.E.E. (StrengthenIng Tools for Resilience Empowerment & Employment) initiative in June 2023. Gopi’s unwavering commitment to the social sector and community upliftment made him an ideal candidate to lead this new initiative. Gopi has consistently demonstrated dedication to his work, coupled with a strong enthusiasm for embracing new learnings,’ recounts Akanksha Borkar, Regional Coordinator.
To count the success of the S.T.R.E.E. initiative, one needs to understand the back story. It started off as a FINISH family Pink Room project meant to address the multifaceted challenges faced by adolescent girls and women in rural India and started off by establishing community-based centres. Soon, a pilot project was rolled out in Nandurbar in Maharashtra in the month of June 2023 with support of Trust of People. These safe and inclusive spaces served as catalysts for empowerment, education, healthcare, economic opportunities, and socio-economic development aimed for females. “By creating Pink Rooms, we aimed to break down barriers, promote gender equality, and foster skill building, ensuring that no one is left behind from accessing equal opportunities. Building a pink room, equipped with IEC around menstrual topics and other amenities such as an incinerator for safe disposal of sanitary pads and menstrual waste, in every area/school/village could offer solutions to saving the environment and health,’ explains Akanksha.
In FY 2024, with an approach to reach the maximum, “we initiated online sessions with women and adolescent girls, wherein a domain expert would guide the girls on the areas of personal hygiene, sanitation, education, personality development, diet & nutrition, career counselling, skill development and mental health,” adds Coordinator Ruchika Mathur.
In line with this objective, they collaborated with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) which is a program under PMKVY (Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yogna) RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning) Training program by Skill India in the month of May 2024, who are dedicated to empower India’s youth through comprehensive skill development. The chief objective was to empower the youth with adequate skill sets that will enable their employment in relevant sectors and also improve productivity.
In the month of May 2024, FINISH team helped with the registrations of women in the program, then collaborated for conducting offline sessions with the help of domain experts. They liaised with the Gram Pradhan (GP) for space to conduct the training program where they had already established Pink rooms. In all, women from 30 GPs were trained by NSDC in which around 1200 women gained proficiency in different subjects such as Yoga, Computer skills, Beauty parlour and Food processing. As many as 700 women gave an online test conducted by Skill India, in which the women who passed were given certificates and a kit to start their own small-scale business with Skill India’s support.
Since the time this initiative was launched as many as 3000 girls and women have been impacted by this outreach.
Today, the Nandurbar team conducts online training in Entrepreneur Development, Communications skills, Career counselling & personal hygiene and financial literacy for both school students and women who are empowered by the skills and knowledge they acquire on a daily basis. “We hope to scale up our training schemes to other GPs since Nandurbar has shown great results, concludes Akanksha.