Women's Empowerment
Often caught between family obligations and being independent, many women never have the chance to develop the necessary skills for employment. This is more true for rural Sri Lankan women, who find themselves pigeonholed into being home makers, pressured by family, society and cultural norms.
Women in Sri Lanka form approximately 57% of a total estimated population of 21 million. However, out of the total economically active population of 8.5 million people, only 33.4% are women. Thus, almost 70% of the labour force constitutes economically inactive women (Salary.lk),
The Women’s Empowerment Centre seeks to change this, by offering an array of empowerment courses, free of charge, to rural women.
OYOB Centre of Excellence – Women’s Empowerment Centre
The Women’s Enterprise & Empowerment Centre programmes help rural women to develop their fiscal strength by providing the necessary foundation and skills for employment.
The courses are specially catered to the needs of women to give them flexible options to work from within their home or enter the job market, as per personal preference and need.
The ability to earn an income and contribute towards the family finances often provides these women (both young and old) with greater independence, security and the decision making power to determine the direction their life will take.
Beauty Culture
![DSC_0354 [1600x1200]](https://unconditionalcompassion.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/DSC_0354-1600x1200-400x300.jpg "DSC_0354 [1600x1200]")
Dress Making
Curtain Making
Saree Work
Food Processing
General Cookery
![DSC_0009 [1600x1200]](https://unconditionalcompassion.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/DSC_0009-1600x1200-400x300.jpg "DSC_0009 [1600x1200]")
Bakery
Soft Toy Making
Computer Skills
Life Skills Workshops
WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT AT THE VILLAGE LEVEL
Our 10 Village Heartbeat Empowerment Centres across the Sri Lanka also offer Women’s Empowerment courses to rural women in each area. These courses are extremely popular, with countless success stories attributing to the high quality of our courses.
The courses include beauty culture, dress making, soft toy making and sewing, in addition to courses in English Language and Computer skills. The fact that our Centres reach deep into rural villages means that many women can divide their time between family responsibilities and learning new skills to empower themselves.
Success Stories
Sustainable Sewing Centre in the Batticaloa District
We are extremely pleased to announce that following the guidance of the Sittandy (Batticaloa District) Village Heartbeat Empowerment Centre coordinator, six former beneficiaries who had completed the dress making course at the Centre have started their very own self-sustainable sewing Center this week!
We are so proud of these enterprising young ladies, who will be using skills learnt from our empowerment course to earn a living. We wish them all the very best for their future endeavours.
Peanut Farming Support for War Widows in Ampara
We happy to announce that with the gracious support of Dr. Kushwin Rajamani, 20 war widows from the Ampara District have been supported to cultivate peanuts on 4 acres of land. These ladies were provided equipment, seeds and guidance from our VHE Centre coordinator in Ampara.
On the 13th of February 2021, a harvest of 250KG of peanuts was reaped!
We wish these ladies every success, with the knowledge they have gained.
Beauty Parlour in the Kilinochchi District
Suriyakumar Nirmala and Kaneshalingam Jerominy were two ambitious ladies from Kilinochchi who completed the Beauty Culture Course at the Murukandy Village Heartbeat Empowerment Centre.
After graduating in 2019, they both jointly opened a successful Beauty Parlour in Kilinochchi!
They are delighted to have realised their dream of running their own Beauty Parlour and reached out to thank us for providing a high standard of skills and education at the Center, which has helped them to earn more and survive in the competitive field of beauty culture.
We wish Suriyakumar Nirmala and Kaneshalingam Jerominy every success for the future.
The Foundation of Goodness is a holistic rural development model that seeks to bridge the urban-rural divide in Sri Lanka via 10 empowerment divisions across 850+ villages island-wide, and reached over 135,000+ beneficiaries in 2023 alone by way of 20 Empowerment Centres, free of cost.