MANSEHRA: A non-government organisation held a mina bazaar in Balakot on Friday at the end of a three-month training programme for the poor women, widowed in the October 2005 earthquake, to enable them to earn an honourable living. Women in large numbers showed up at the event and took keen interest in the handicrafts prepared by the trainee women. The USAID funded the project.

“I am impressed to see such a large number of women here and also appreciate men who allowed their women to get training in handicrafts making and then put their products on display for marketing,” said Dr Sajjad, a member of the executive committee of the Federation of Environment, Education Development and Equal Rights, the NGO, while speaking at the concluding ceremony of the project on Friday.

Dr Sajjad said that the NGO had constituted a six-member committee to provide the trained women with an opportunity to showcase their handicrafts in markets across the country.

Speaking on the occasion, Quseem Malik, the project manager, said the programme launched in March would be extended to other union councils of Balakot where women were still deprived of their basic rights and amenities.

She said that though her team faced challenges while executing the project and reaching out to the target women, the USAID experts guided them on how to work effectively among the communities.

Ms Malik said that the NGO had not only trained women in different fields of making handicraft but also taught them how to market their products.

She said that the committee, which she was leading, would make sure that women got attractive profits on their products. “It will also serve as a small entrepreneur to avail loans from banks for the women in case they wanted to expand their businesses,” she said.

Later, the project monitoring and evaluation officer, Mubashar Jahangiri, chief executive Dr Ibrar Ahmad Swati, Ms Malik and Dr Sajjad gave away certificates to the trainee women.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2014