Woman economic empowerment and environmental protection

Empowering woman through skill training and usage of science & technology transferring mechanism in the green field for socio economic growth as well as climate change mitigation at various levels.

Global Environment Research Foundation (GERF) Kalyani, W.B. India is an autonomous centre for studies, training and research in the areas of ecology, environment, pollution monitoring & control, natural resource conservation, solid and liquid waste management, and environment audit. Other activities of the institute are environmental awareness plans. GERF is associated with various NGO’s level work.

In our solution we are focusing on two issues, the first one is empowering women specially those who are from underprivileged section of society and the later on is the protection of environment.

We are in the sector of training,education & research in the areas of employment creation as well as environment protection and we are focusing on preserving river and ponds from waste of flowers and leaves from temples,mosques and burning ghats into different products.

The problem our idea solve is that every year thousands tonnes of waste flowers are dumped into river nearby us that is River Hooghly. Today we all know in the world of competition, farming is also included and it is being a fashion and need of using different type of chemicals,fertilizers and pesticides for high production of flower farming and restoration of color and hence increases the market value. After usage of these flower and leaves they all are dumped in the nearby river or pond that makes the water highly poisonous.This water affect lives of people.

Our team comprises of local woman and youth who are in direly need of employment to maintain their livelihoods and they have a chain of people who used to collect the said wastage from local temple,mosque etc as per their designated areas and store them at a particular place from where it is being segregated for further processing with the help of different technological mechanisms. In this process there is a huge potential of employment at different stages of till finished goods along with the market level.

The impact of our solution is that, by our idea we are not only generating employment(both active & passive) but also we are cleaning the environment in a very simple way. We used to train the people about the importance of flower waste and how to make product out of this waste through the help of technology. Not only this, we have a consortium of experts from universities,industries and institutions and we have the market linkages who help us in selling the finished products like incense stick,perfume,bio fertilizer etc made up of these waste flowers.

Assessing the per capita income of this section of society those who are engaged with this project through their savings in bank account. - (REGP) rural employment generation programme for underpriviledged section of the society

Child education, healthcare facilities,cultural up-gradation. - Financial inclusion and better livelihood

Area wise data collection about the level of cleanliness of river and ponds and checking the general public awareness level as well. - Environmental protection in terms of cleaning local based river and ponds

Our idea delivers a unique approach to education and training for the rural women and we have been able to help them to earn their living and fighting the societal dogmas.At GERF,we have many experts and technological setup which helps the training and in India there are many religion who practice their rituals accordingly and that leads for wastage of flower and leaves and our team collect those for making finished products.

Our idea seems to be innovative because we are not only preserving our environment but also we are focusing on fostering the potential employment generation in different segments.

Our idea is totally human centric because where there is no light,our objective is to bring the light in the lives of the underprivileged people which can enhance the economic viability and the ultimate impact is creation of potential employment segment wise ,transcending to the education and cleanliness of the environment as well as restoration of mental peace which makes them happier from one to many. Not only this in India,rivers and ponds are being used for religion practices and here are we who help the people for protecting the river along with gradual reduction of poverty. 

We are attached with UN voluteering along with that we have networks of various expert NGOs located in different areas and we have the ICT enabled services which connects all of us in a same loop. All the coordinators of the NGOs co ordinates among the grass root level and we receive the counter feedback from the centers which helps us to modify our plan accordingly.

Our plan is as follows 

• We have a reserve fund for piloting.
• We calculate the hourly cost of each member in terms of wages.
• We focus on the financial cycle by assessing the ROI on finished products.
• We have both active and passive employment generation plan which leads to build the chain of selling the finished products.
• Our plan is to cover the uncovered areas having similar environment for reaching out more people for better economic growth.

Following are the constraints:

• Illiteracy
• Political issues
• Ethical issues
• Understanding skills
• Adaptability power
• Patience
• Capacity of making awareness on production & selling.
• Lack of entrepreneurial mentality.

GERF mainly deals with the implementation of REGP (Rural Employment Generation Programme) and we are very much aware that in India rituals practices requires a huge quantity of flowers that has been dumped to river makes the water poisonous.By our idea we are addressing two major issues,firstly the potential employment generation and the later on is cleanliness of environment. We use the flower waste from various sources  for converting into finished products. In the whole process we are targeting those underprivileged people who are in need of employment. 

We are in the process of establishing the partner organization.