Gem & Jewellery Skill Council of India announced Project Vanika in Palghar

Gem& Jewellery Skill Council of India( GJSCI) initiates Project Vankia in alliance with IJMA & Aasmant Foundation in Palghar

by Shrutee K/DNS

On 6^th March, 2016, Gem & Jewellery Skill Council of India (GJSCI) announced Project Vanika in Palghar by entering a tri party alliance with Imitation Jewellery Manufacturers Association(IJMA) &Aasmant Foundation to facilitate training and skilling of 4000 tribal women in the next three years in imitation/fashion jewellery manufacturing. The signing of the  alliance was witnessed byShri. Vishnu Savara, Cabinet Minister for Tribal Development where Mr.Binit Bhatt, COO, GJSCI, Mr.Madhubhai Parekh and Mr.Narendra Mehta from IJMA, Ms.Nisha, President, Aasmant Foundation  along-with Mr. Sunil Agharkar and Ms.Reshma did the signing.

With an aim to empower Indian rural women who engage themselves in household activities due to lack of skill, project Vanika was formed. In India, most of the rural women give up their education and professional career to spend more time on household activities.This is because of lack of proper training and development infrastructure and culturally assigned roles that severely restrict rural women to have their own financial independence. On the other hand, the tribal population, which constitutes 8% of the total population of Maharashtra was usually ignored. Thus, there is an urge of skilling this demographic that would not only help in the upliftment of the tribal population, but also allow them to contribute to the skilled man-power of the country. One of the crucial ways to empower a rural and tribal Indian woman is to train and educate them.

With project Vanika, the daily income of Tribal woman in the belt of Palgharwill increase upto Rs.150 per day. Several women, due to poverty are forced to beg and at times have also become a victim of human trafficking. This initiative will be thus a turning point for development in the tribal areas of Palghar.

Under project Vanika initiative GJSCI shall help in training and certifying the tribal women by extending technical support and providing manpower for training the trainers as well as trainees. It will help in building and upgrading technical facilities to global competitive standards. IJMA will provide a decent quantum of work to the tribal women on a continuous basis. It will also offer job work based on availability of requisite man-power with the help of GJSCI. Aasmant Foundation shall help in mobilizing eligible candidates for imparting skill training to the ‘Tribal Girl Child’ for manufacturing / Assembling of the imitation / Fashion jewellery products. It will also form a ‘Co-operative society’ / Bhachatghat to facilitate the financial transactions occurred due to the manufacturing / job work undertaken by the tribal. GJSCI will form a coorperative society.

Post signing of Project Vanika, the delegates later visited few tribal homes and briefed them about this skill development initiative and its benefits like, attaining a government certified training with assured employability. The people reciprocated positively and are eagerly looking forward to benefit from such an opportunity.

The pilot batch of 20 candidates shall start the training process by 20^th April, 2016.