Cause 04 of nine

Women’s empowerment: self help groups and enterprise

Independence is worth more than assistance. Alorah Foundation supports women through self help groups, financial inclusion and small enterprise, so that help given once does not have to be given again.

What Alorah Foundation does in this cause

• Self help groups: forming them, training them and helping them keep their books.
• Financial inclusion: bank accounts, savings habits and access to fair credit.
• Seed support for a small enterprise, from a sewing machine to a shop’s first stock.
• Skill training chosen for what the local market will actually pay for.
• Support for widows, single mothers and abandoned women, who carry a household alone.

Who this reaches, and how we follow it

This cause overlaps with livelihood work by design. A woman who is given a trade and the working capital to start it stops needing a monthly ration, and that is the outcome we measure. We follow these gifts for years, because the honest test of a livelihood grant is whether the enterprise is still running in year three.

Every open need on alorah.org shows what is required, what has come in and what is still short, and funded projects are photographed before, after and for five years afterwards. Where a person’s dignity asks for privacy, the outcome is documented without photographs. See the live needs for what is open today.

If you need help

If you are a woman looking to start or restart work and the barrier is money or training, apply for assistance and tell us what the work is. Assistance is offered without discrimination of caste, creed, religion or gender, and the documents you send are held privately and never published.

If you want to help

Every donation to Alorah Foundation is eligible for deduction under Section 80G of the Income-tax Act, and your receipt carries the registration numbers your accountant will ask for. You do not need an account to give. Read how the 80G tax benefit works, or give now on the donate section.

The other causes we carry

• Livelihood & Self-Reliance
• Education & Skills
• Child & Maternal Care
• All nine causes