Self-reliance for widowed women in Jaffna

by Shirajv SIRIMANE

The Women's Chamber of Industry and Commerce (WCIC) has decided to launch several self-employment projects for widowed women in Jaffna. This follows a visit by the WICI last week.

President of the WICI Vindyani Hettigoda said they met the officials of the Jaffna Women's Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture and discussed how WCIC could assist their members who are mainly widowed women in finding local and foreign markets for their products.

"We have also decided to conduct a series of camps with technical officials from Colombo giving them advice and training on designing, packaging, dress making, hair dressing, and cookery. This will help them to start their own businesses," she said.

The team also visited the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Yarlpanam and met K. Pooranachandran, Chairman of the Chamber. "They were also interested in finding markets for their products such as sweetmeats, snacks and in obtaining knowledge on new technology," she said.

She said that they met Hans-Peter Etter, Head of Field Office, Swiss Development Co-operation Office, Jaffna and discussed how WCIC could assist in having a training centre for differently abled women in various skills in parallel with the housing project initiated by them.

Micro finance to assist widowed women in the area to start their own self employment ventures too was an area they focused their attention and in this regard they met up with Deny Constantine of the German Technical Corporation (GTZ) office in Jaffna.

They also visited the Mallavi Resettlement Camp in Palinagar and met nearly 150 widowed women. "Some of them were still in a traumatized state and need counselling. We also handed over stationery items, children's clothes and toys to their families," she said.