Women empowered

As a part of the special program designed to ensure that these women called veer naris,clear the interviews and are able to hold their jobs,FWO has come up with a specialised training.

“We have recently received offers from a private group which owns several hotels to employ our veer naris. To meet their requirements,we will be training these women so that they can face the growing competition of the outside world,” says Sunita Khanna,president,FWO,Southern Command.

The organisation has been running several such personality development programs for women over the last four decades. “Most of our instructors are army wives – we feel that they are the best instructors for this sort of training,” Khanna adds.

The AWWA conducts scores of vocational training programs for the families of the Persons Below Officer Rank (PBOR)). “Our aim is to create employment. At any point of time,there are at least 30-40 job applications,we train them in such a manner that they are able to meet the criteria,” says Khanna.

Many women have been employed within the command area in canteens,billing sections and other administrative jobs. “The Southern Command covers nearly 43 per cent of the country. Each year,our vocational courses train around 10,000 women in the entire command area,” smiles Khanna.

Recently,the organisation started a Tea Project,which has resulted in the employment of eight veer naris. “Empowering of veer naris,especially the needy,less educated and less skilled is one of the main welfare activities undertaken by family welfare organisation. The tea packaging and the pouch packaging projects for providing regular employment to eight veer naris is in progress since August 2009,” says Khanna further. “We get the tea from Assam and these women ensure that the tea is packaged and marketed,” says Lizy Tharakan,secretary,FWO.

Among the other courses that the FWO conducts in the Southern Command are computing,tailoring,beauticians,English speaking,paper bag manufacturing,pickle and food processing. The organisation also focuses on the children of the soldiers. “We hold very high level workshops at the army schools to counsel children and their parents on stress management,” says Khanna.

The FWO also runs nine Asha schools in the command area. These schools are run to provide specialised care for special children with a view of making them physically self sufficient and developing vocational skills.