Directory of Organizations

With the fragmented neo-liberal industrial production, the employment sector is offering opportunities to women which involve piecemeal work, home-based tasks, and low-paying insecure industrial jobs which do not help women to find ‘decent’ work. While there are several organizations across India working on issues of women and livelihood, they are largely based on existing and accepted roles of women as workers. They center on the SHG model of credit and thrift or home-based small-scale industry or collective/association model for common modes of production like incense, food items (pickles, jams), clothes, or piecemeal contribution. Domesticity, secondary income, and ‘feminine’ roles are the domains in which civil society, philanthropic organizations, government programs, and projects under Corporate Social Responsibility largely operate. However, many organizations have tried to challenge these traditional frameworks by creating new roles for women as paid workers, by training them in skills which are not necessarily ‘soft’ or mirroring domesticity, and by introducing new sectors and avenues to the women’s workforce. These efforts not only aim to enhance the skills and income of working women but also question the public and private patriarchy, which limit women’s prospects of acquiring higher skills, higher income, and actual career growth.

This directory is developed primarily to map organizations that have worked on non-traditional livelihoods for women in India. It tells us when these organizations were formed, what they do, how they reach out, and what have been some of their achievements, challenges, and results. The organizational details provided herewith are the ones that are not just training women in non-traditional occupations but are actually helping them to make a living from non-traditional livelihood sources. We have been very selective in this mapping exercise as we wanted to look at organizations that address women’s livelihood with a combination of skills and access to employment. Organizations that focus on training alone or that look at employment and increased income as a ‘possible’ outcome and not a planned expected output have also been featured as some of their efforts too are innovative and provide opportunities to learn.

The purpose of developing this directory is to make the information readily available for prospective organizations aspiring to work in non-traditional domains for livelihood and women as well as an attempt to bring existing organizations together for future collaborations for learning and advocacy.

Read the Directory of Organizations