To empower women street vendors (wave-14), the Entrepreneurs Associates (EA) organised a meeting at Tenyiphe village council, here on Monday. The meeting was attended by 230 women street vendors.
In the meeting, EA advisor Neikule Doulo gave an introduction of uplifting women street vendors’ project.
She said that the EA’s initiative was to support women vendors of the state for better access to their rights and educate them on basic skills on business heath and finance. It was in this connection, EA project was initiated and was officially launched on October 13, 2017.
Through the project, EA has been giving basic business skills to the women vendors, to help them understand on how the market works, facilitate financial empowerment through savings stock and finance, create awareness on product knowledge, sensitize on health and hygiene related topic, educate them on their basic rights and make them model entrepreneurs to influence their families. She also elaborated on the importance of street vendor Act Street Vendors Act, 2014, an act of the Parliament of India enacted to regulate street vendors in public areas and protect their rights which is yet to be implemented in Nagaland.
Doulo further lauded the women on their contribution and hard work and asked them to continue to strive in expanding their business in the coming days. She also cited common problems faced by the women street vendors which basically include lack of proper toilets, transportation, short shelf life of many of their products due to no availability of cold storage facility, etc.
Importance of saving and introduction of Entrepreneurs Associates Thrift & Credit Cooperatives Federation Ltd (EATACOL) was highlighted by EATACOL branch manager Temsurenla Ao, where she spoke on saving culture, how to mobilise savings and how it was done. She also highlighted about the different plans and schemes.
The meeting witnessed distribution of cheques for women vendors who have saved more than Rs. 10,000, experiential sharing and programme on the importance of financial planning. The programme also followed interactive session.