ENSURING SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS
CARE India is a registered Section 8 company in India and a member of CARE confederation present in 100 countries, which works with the most marginalised women and girls to alleviate poverty and reduce social injustice through comprehensive programmes in health, education, livelihoods and humanitarian assistance and rehabilitation.
Livelihood
CARE’s livelihood sector programmes centre around women smallholders, business-women, employees and homeworkers belonging to poor and marginalised communities, with the objective of empowering them with knowledge and enhanced access to inputs, services, technologies and opportunities. We facilitate the building of an enabling and gender-transformative environment for conducting economic activities by engaging men and other influential actors, both private and public, who are involved in market value chains and entitlement delivery. Helping women from marginalised communities to earn their livelihoods using a variety of non-agricultural avenues is one of the core mandates of CARE’s livelihood sector programmes.
We focus on improving access and control of women from marginalised communities over productive resources, services and opportunities; enhancing their food and nutrition security; and improving their abilities in climate change resilience. Reaching out to over 1,85,546 individuals reached directly through livelihood interventions across 11 states, out of which 130,293 are women, CARE India has built the capacities of individuals and collectives. By supporting various collectives, the interventions address barriers such as unequal power relations and enable the transformation of gender norms at multiple levels.
CARE India works with women smallholder farmers in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal to support sustainable and climate resilient agricultural practices, improve nutrition security and build climate change resilience against various kinds of shocks and stresses. To bring about holistic change in the areas of resilience and nutrition, it is necessary to sustain resources for future, promote individual and institutional capacities and transform vulnerability to risks in the areas of agriculture and livelihood. Our work also focusses on building asset-base, knowledge, information on institutional entitlements and governance, to improve climate change resilience and nutrition security.
Key Projects
- Clean and Environment Friendly Cooking Solutions for Urban/Village Slum Dwellers
- Climate Change Adaptation of women smallholders and Cotton Producers from Vidarbha region, India (CCACP)
- Improved Agriculture and Inclusive Dairy Value Chain Promotion (IAIDVC)
- Women+Water
- Technical Assistance and Research for Indian Nutrition and Agriculture (TARINA)
- SWITCH Asia II – Evolving A Women-Centered Model Of Improved Cook Stoves (ICS) for Sustained Adoption At Scale
- Enhancing The Sustainable Farming Initiative (ESFI) By Integrating Gender And Nutrition
- Women’s Leadership In Small And Medium Enterprises (WLSME)
Major Achievements
- 01 14 livelihoods initiatives reached 189,000+ women and 119,000+ men were directly, and more than 285 women and 268 men indirectly across seven states in.
- 02 15% and 21% growths in asset values for households when calculated with and without agricultural land respectively was achieved through Pathways
- 03 13,000 poor household have additional economic opportunities and income, through Pathways project poor household have additional
- 04 33% increase in the number of women involved in business activities, registered under Banking on Change project.
- 05 189,000 +Women and 119,000 + men reached directly through 14 different livelihood initiatives across seven states
The Motivator
A 45-year-old tribal woman from Orissa, Arna Majhi struggled to make ends meet as a farmer. That was until her zeal to be successful in life, got her the attention of CARE India project coordinator. Impressed with her determination to work hard to achieve success, Arna was selected as a woman champion from her village and trained by CARE India in implementing modern agricultural practices. After the training, Arna, along with her husband, meticulously implemented the practices of seed treatment and line sowing in their field, and increased their yield by 50%. Today she works as an animator with CARE India at a Farmer Field School under project Pathways, travels to various villages in the district along with CARE India team, and motivates others to adopt modern agricultural practices. Read more…
