RSP sets up new WRCs under ‘Project Kishori’

Rourkela: Expanding the ambit of Project Kishori, a project for empowerment of women under the CSR initiative of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), the steel plant has set up 10 more Women Resource Centres (WRC) in periphery villages of Chuabahal, Godabandh, Relaposh, Bagdega and Gudguda of Nuagaon Block and Buchahanda, Khairban, Gopdihi, Birual and Tumren of Lathikata Block.

In a programme organized at RSP’s Institute for Peripheral Development (IPD) recently, 38 Master Trainers, drawn from the newly set up WRCs, were trained in ‘Improved Chullah’ making and ‘Mushroom cultivation’. During the programme, the women were trained by experts from the Society for Rural Industrialization (SRI), an NGO from Ranchi, in making improved smokeless chullah that will be energy-efficient, cost-effective as well as health and environment friendly.

In the Mushroom cultivation module, they were given inputs regarding the science and art of the trade and ways of exploring new business opportunities. These trainers would run training classes at the WRCs in the evening for the village women for free, thereby spreading the knowledge and skill to hundreds of families.

In future these Master Trainers will be trained in various other modules like ‘Food processing’, ‘Health and hygiene’, ‘vermi-compost’ etc.

It may be mentioned that under Project Kishori, RSP has earlier established 30 Women Resource Centres (WRC) at various villages under the four Revenue blocks of Nuagaon, Lathikata, Bisra and Kuarmunda, that are now acting as the hubs of learning and progress for the young women.

The aim of the WRCs is to empower young women by training them in various income generation activities, enhancing their self-esteem, making them conscious of health and hygiene as well as about their social and legal rights.