Women on Wings’ mission of co-creating one million jobs for women in rural India is inevitably coupled with travelling to India’s deep pockets to work with the social enterprises that generate work for the women. To compensate its global footprint, Women on Wings recently supported the creation of a mango tree orchard, which also will lead to income for rural women since mango fruit is a cash crop.
Sustainable development
To achieve the same, Women on Wings tied up with its partner Sahaj – an organization for women’s development (Sahaj) which promotes sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to -women- artisans and securing the rights of marginalized producers and workers. Sahaj is working with tribal women artisans of Eastern Gujarat and provides home-based livelihood opportunities to address the issue of annual migration.
Horticulture brings additional income
Sahaj’s campus is on an eight acre land, on the Indore Ahmedabad highway, in a small village called Dhadhela. Here, due to the harsh weather and other conditions, agriculture is very poor. So the idea germinated of encouraging horticulture as an additional means of income, to create solutions to increase own farm based income for the rural families. Sahaj listed out trees and discovered flora and fauna of sixty five rare species, which are almost distinct.
Mango cash crop
Along with the protection of environment, the additional aim to create income for rural women led to the planting of mango trees. Mango fruit is a cash crop. Sahaj turned to professional help and advice which resulted in the women federation in Dahod to develop a local specie of mango called ‘Ratnamel Kesar’. Women on Wings supported Sahaj by way of donating funds to procure saplings, manure, basic machinery to plant and maintain fifty mango saplings and ten Indian gooseberry saplings for the entire year.
Women on Wings and Sahaj
Women on Wings is very proud to associate in this sapling planting project with Sahaj. It serves dual purpose of making rural women skilled in an additional source of income and also it compensates Women on Wings’ carbon footprint which is inevitable because of its work of supporting Indian social entrepreneurs in their growth to ultimately co-create extra jobs for women in rural India. Women on Wings and Sahaj started collaborating in 2016 on realizing their joint goal of increasing livelihoods for rural and tribal women.
Image: Sahaj’s management Ms Jabeen Jambughodawalla and Mr Vijay Prakash Jani
