ILO empowers Naanaattan women to form Mannar garment unit

Saturday, 20 June 2015 00:04 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Twenty-five women from the Naanaattan DS Division of the Mannar District are to be trained in modern dressmaking in order to establish a mini garment unit as a sustainable business.

ILO Office for Sri Lanka and the Maldives Country Director Donglin Li inaugurated this training facility in the presence of the Divisional Secretary and representatives from the UNDP, National Youth Services Council (NYSC) and Consortium of Societies in Naanaattan on 10 June.

This training program was implemented by the ILO under the European Union Support for District Development Programme (EU-SDDP) being run in the Mannar District. It is an initiative conducted jointly by the Divisional Secretariat, UNDP, NYSC and Consortium of Societies.

Beneficiaries were selected by the Divisional Secretariat and the Consortium of Societies. The ILO supports six months of institutional training and three months of on-the-job-training (OJT), which includes business training on Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) modules and equipment for training.

During the OJT period, the UNDP will convert the training location into a mini-garment unit with further equipment and operational support. The Divisional Secretariat office, together with the Consortium of Societies, will follow up and sustain the program. Skills training will be conducted by the Mannar Centre of National Youth Services Council.

The Divisional Secretary welcomed the ILO Country Director and representatives of the UNDP, NYSC and the Consortium and thanked them for joining together in providing sustainable employment opportunities to women in his division. He emphasised the need to sustain the business and promised to provide continuous support.

Li, in his address, welcomed this joint initiative and said that the ILO was always committed to support demand-driven courses which would develop employable skills to generate income in a sustainable way. The ILO Director thanked the UNDP, DS, NYSC and Consortium of Societies for partnering it and asserted that this kind of joint intervention should be replicated.

For further information contact Rukshan Lovell, Programme Officer, EU SDDP SKILLED Project, ILO Country Office for Sri Lanka and the Maldives on [email protected] or +94652228312. You can also visit www.ilo.org/colombo.