Community Ownership and Development - Towards Sustainable Livelihoods!

CSA’s networking partner Savdhan Social Centre organised a session on basic cooking for domestic workers on 14 th June 2018 at Manori. The session focused on preparing nutritious, delicious and time saving meal. The resource person Mr. Anirudha Vaidya is a highly experienced chef at a private hotel. He taught two recipes namely moong salad and white sauce in a very simple way and showed the preparing techniques and ingredients required. The ten domestic workers who attended the sessions were excited to learn new recipes from a chef himself and the method of serving food to guests.

A session on managing outdoor work activities was held for domestic workers on 13th April 2018 at Manori. Nine women attended this session. Miss Snehal and Mr Mahesh, manager of Citizen Credit Cooperative Bank were the resource persons for the session. Miss Snehal questioned the workers their way of shopping for groceries to which they replied that a list is made for the items to be purchased and later final accounts are submitted to the owner after they have shopped. Miss Snehal explained the need to make a list of the required items before going shopping, cross checking the items that are purchased, keeping a check on the brand mark logo, checking for the expiry date of the product and to carry along a proper bill with stamp after shopping is done. Mr. Mahesh explained steps to pay bills via bank and demonstrated the way to deposit slips and fill cheques (bearer/account payee etc) for transactional purposes. He also provided basic information on the different types of bank a...

CSA changes the life of 40 women with its Financial empowerment program (FEP) which began in November 2016 at Mumbai & Dharavi Island. The objective being to enable the marginalized & underprivileged women to understand the importance of savings. In order to encourage women to make their own decision for their personal & family growth and for the growth of the society at large, CSA in collaboration with its networking partners designed a module for the program. Engaging at the grass root level CSA conducted sessions every month at Poinsur, Bunderpakhadi, Goregaon & Uttan areas. Fifty women participated and understood the method of savings, the various types of bank accounts like Saving and Recurring Deposit(RD) and the procedure to open a simple bank account. Out of the 50 women, 40 completed their 12 months RD of Rs. 500 a month and decided to make an FD as well as restart an RD (of Rs.1000). A lady from Bunderpakhadi said, “After the FEP program I learnt to save m...

On 30 th November 2017 Savdhan Samaj Kendra at Manori organized a skill enhancement session on Gardening for eight domestic working women. The resource person for the session was Mr. Arvind Yadav & Mr. Ramesh Thage who are mentors in the BMC gardening department. The women were taught different ways to nurture a plant and the method for plantation. A brief information about the MCGM’s Garden and Trees department was given and they were also informed about the low-priced flower seeds and medicinal plants that are sold there. They were invited for the demonstration held at the gardening dept to see the work they do, the different types of plants and the procedure to maintain them. They were ready to teach them all of these. They learnt that all plants require a lot of care and hard work. The next plan of action of the women at Manori is to visit the Gardening department at Malad, east, as a group and to be skilled in practical knowledge.