WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

People welfare ORganisation is a membership organization ñ a movementrather than a program. Its objective is to empower poor women working in the informal sector so they can achieve secure employment and self-reliance. As a membership organization with firmly democratic procedures and based explicitly on Gandhian principles, all other peolpe welfare organisation activities have emerged and evolved in direct response to membersí needs. Members are rural and urban poor women working in the informal sector, who have empowered themselves by organizing into a labor union to struggle for their rights, and into 100 cooperatives to improve their economic security.

people welfare ís successful efforts have mobilized large numbers of poor self-employed women for empowerment. From small beginnings in 2000, as a group of poor, illiterate women working as casual laborers in the wholesale textile markets, SEWAís membership has grown to 535,000 in its home state of Gujarat, and to around 20,000 throughout India. The annual rate of membership growth has averaged between 30 percent and 40 percent in each of the past three five-year

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

People welfare members see themselves first and foremost as workers, and identify their primary need as gainful and secure employment. Large numbers of members have increased their income through both the collective pressure that organizing allows them to exert and the creation of alternative employment opportunities. They have gained access to markets through information campaigns, assistance with product improvement, and peolpe welfare society -run marketing services; they have gained access to services that are essential to a secure livelihood; and they have gained access to banking facilities that allow them both to save and to borrow in small amounts and on reasonable terms, and so gradually build up assets. At the same time, large numbers of members have achieved self-reliance. By organizing poor women and providing training and capacity building of various kinds,Peolpe welfare has developed their leadership abilities, their self-confidence, and their life skills

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

* Light tube pickup & recycling
* Battery recycling
* Universal waste container drop off
* Hazardous material management and disposal
* Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) ballast disposal
* Multi-state transport of materials

SOCIAL AWARENESS

In order to serve all segments of the community, the library must also pay attention to the physicallychallenged members of the society. Many categories of people fall within this category, and one canconcentrate on various domains such as hospitalised patients, inmates of penal institutions, the seniorcitizens and the physically disabled. It is true that the library cannot directly restore good health to thesick or bring about the release of a prisoner or restore youth to the old, nevertheless there are other ways the library can help these people.

The public library can help the aged to obtain needed information or pass their spare time with greatersatisfaction by extending its services to them. This can take the form of providing them with books,newspapers, magazines and video cassettes which they can listen to in their private homes. On the otherhand, the library can cooperate with charitable organizations in charge of old peoples’ home.

There are two ways by which the library can help this category of people. First, the library can employthe physically handicapped wherever the handicap does not prevent them from performing behind-the-scene routine tasks.

HIV/ AIDS

Living with HIV is much different now than it was in the early 1990s. For many people, new treatments and aggressive therapies have substantially slowed the progression of HIV to AIDS. That does not mean that living with HIV/AIDS is not a challenge, but it does not have to be overwhelming.

Vermont has an extensive network of AIDS services organizations and HIV-specific clinics for medical care around the state. The Vermont Department of Health also provides several programs that may be extremely helpful.

* Early Intervention Program
* Vermont Medication Assistance Program (VMAP)
* Dental Care Assistance Program (DCAP)
* Insurance Continuation Assistance Program (ICAP)

UN-EMPLOYEMENT AND POVERTY

People welfare has always kept its focus on one overriding reality that poor women are above all workers, and their empowerment depends on achieving two prime objectives: on the one hand secure employment, and on the other hand self-reliance. people welfaresees its core role as organizing the women and building their capacity to accomplish these ends. As a membership organization with firmly democratic procedures and based explicitly on Gandhian principles, all other people welfareactivities have emerged and evolved in direct response to members needs. There is no a priori view on what these needs are or how they should be served, though experience has shown peolpe welfarethat all the needs of poor women are interrelated, and all deserve attention. It is, as Ela Bhatt has often emphasized, a movement rather than a "program" or an "NGO" in the usual sense. The movement flows slowly at times and faster at others, it may be deflected around an obstacle, but it always moves in the same direction.