Education Centre at Milakpur Dhani for the women artisans

With the objective of making underprivileged women self sustainable and spreading awareness on the importance of education, SETU has been running 2 education centres for the women, especially focussing on adult education i.e., providing education to the illiterate women in the age group of 18- 50 years. Both the centres have been successfully running since over a year and the participants have benefitted greatly and are able to read & write, even getting jobs!
In the series, another literacy centre has been started for the kantha stitching women artisans at Milakpur Dhandi from 25th of December 2015. The underlying aim behind opening the education centre is to make the women artisans and girl children of artisans literate; not only illiterate women but also those who had to leave their education in the middle due to some reason or those who are school dropouts.
These women artisans are engaged in doing thread work for SETU. Promoting education will increase self sustainability and would open new avenues of employment for the artisans.
Some of these women artisans need to be breadwinners and support their families. But many do not have consistent work opportunities. Educating them would help in the overall development of the artisan community as educated mothers will be able to take care of their families in a better way and can perform their work efficiently.

The region is primarily an industrial area and a large chunk of the daily wagers are employed as labourers on industrial sites. Although children of the artisans go to school but due to lack of financial resources, the girl children are forced to leave their education and start doing the household chores at an early age. Realising this, education Centres like the ones started by SETU are a much needed amenity here.