Women Empowerment Program

Economic Empowering and supporting girls and women with disabilities to start up sustainable, market and technological relevant income generating projects.

Objective of the project: Sustainable livelihoods for the poor and marginalized girls and women with disabilities in Monaragala district.

This project will solve two challenges faced by WwDs: Extreme poverty through economic empowerment and lack of social inclusion through continuous mentorship. Women and girls with disabilities experience double discrimination, which places them at higher risk of gender-based violence, sexual abuse, neglect, maltreatment and exploitation by society as well as family.

Disability places a set of extra demands or challenges on the family system; most of these demands last for a long time.  Many of these challenges cut across disability type, age, and type of family in which the person lives. There is the financial burden associated with getting health, education, and social services; buying or renting equipment and devices; making accommodations to the home; transportation; and medications and special food. The disability can consume a disproportionate share of a family's resources of time, energy, and money, so that other individual and family needs go unmet. The family's lifestyle and leisure activities are altered. A family's dreams and plans for the future may be given up. Social roles are disrupted because often there is not enough time, money, or energy to devote to them. There are a whole set of issues that create emotional strain, including worry, guilt, anxiety, anger, and uncertainty about the cause of the disability, about the future, about the needs of other family members, about whether one is providing enough assistance, and so on. This issues especially   higher risk of the girls and women with disabilities rather than other men or boys with disabilities.

Poverty among women with disabilities is concerning, and requires programs focused specifically on alleviating poverty among women with disabilities, rather than just persons with disabilities or women. There are unique issues that women with disabilities face which must be addressed. The fact that the economy improved and poverty rates decreased for women as a whole, yet remained the same for women with disabilities, there’s a long road ahead to address the needs of this specific population.

The girls and women with disabilities having a economic sustainability their future life is secure and stable. If she has a financial capacity family lifestyle will change and they will treat her as an economic partner of the family rather than the dependent or major burden for them.

“ARLIYA” PwDs economic empowerment program.

Specific objectives of the project

  • Empowering poor and marginalized people affected by disability to improve their economic status in Monaragala District.
  • To enhance knowledge, skill and capacity of persons with disability on profitable and disabled people friendly economic development activities.
  • To establish a financial support scheme to provide Persons with disability access to financial and input support to successfully start their concerned economic development activities.
  • Introduce and practice Social enterprise concept with project beneficiaries and ensure organizational sustainability.

Project Idea;

This project will solve two challenges faced by PwDs: Extreme poverty through economic empowerment and lack of social inclusion, through continuous mentorship and linkage with markets and financial institutions.

Concise Problem Statement;

Monaragala district statistics indicate that over 12000 of the persons who are living in district experience some form of disability. The persons with disabilities are more likely to experience socioeconomic exclusion such as less education, poor access to health services, lack of mobility due to inappropriately designed infrastructure, lower employment and higher poverty rates. Furthermore, these people face extreme social exclusion resulting in lack of access to education and economic opportunities. Due to these facts, economic empowerment is vital towards eliminating challenges facing upwards. Belonging to the poor parents and families, the people with disability lead their lives in a miserable condition. Unfortunately, Govt initiatives for the disabled peoples are hardly available while NGOs and civil societies do not have adequate programs for them. Considering the situation, WOPD has undertaken an initiative to promote the livelihood, their rights, easy living and economic self-sufficiency of the people with disability.

In our society, the disabled persons are often looked upon as a burden on the society and are unable to become productive members of the society. In the past, the disability related issues have been ignored widely both by the Govt and the NGOs. Currently they are being recognized as a cross cutting development issues and also are gradually being seen more as an issue of right than charity. In order to enhance socioeconomic development, the country cannot afford to leave these segments of people out of the development process.