Kamalini

Kamalini Vocational Training Centre for Women provides training and encouragement to underprivileged young girls and women in cutting and tailoring, embroidery, computer applications and as beauticians, irrespective of religion, caste, class or community, so that these women may gain the skills and confidence they need to better support themselves and their families. 

Female labor participation rate in India is less than 24%, compared to 76% for men, and female literacy rate also lags that of men by 12.9% points. Many young women drop out of school and migrate to developing cities in search of jobs to support their families. Due to their lack of adequate marketable skills, these women often have no choice but to take up informal work, for which they are often underpaid and undervalued.

Since opening its doors in 2007, Kamalini Vocational Training Center for Women has helped thousands of women in India complete their education and receive specialized skill training in retail, textiles, catering, IT, business, and micro-finance. As a result, they have access to better job opportunities with higher salaries, and many of them have started their own businesses.

Kamalini has also established an in-house production center to help students and alumni start or improve their own businesses. Sales from the products made in the production center help students support themselves while they complete their training.

The Kamalini campus features technical and theory classroom for trades of sewing, cooking, catering and housekeeping, basic computers and beauticians’ courses, designed to help needy women from limited educational backgrounds gain skills for self-employment or for entry-level jobs. The curriculum balances trade with English and employability skills. A hostel and in-house training block provides accommodation for students from remote villages as well as the opportunity for on-the-job training  practice for students of cooking and hospitality.

Testimonies

Bijayalaxmi Das is 30 years old and the mother of three beautiful children. Like Bijayalaxmi, many women are finding a better future with the skills they gain through training at Kamalini.

“My husband and I migrated to New Delhi in search of better employment opportunities. I was at home most of the time and wanted to help my husband with the family expenses. I was unable to do so because I didn’t even know Hindi, the language spoken here. 

Then I got to know about the Kamalini Vocational Training Centre and started attending Cutting and Tailoring and Hindi Literacy classes. I received a lot of help from my teachers. Now I’m able to communicate fluently in Hindi and support my family economically, as I earn money stitching clothes for my neighbors.”                                                                              

Sunita, 27, is a stoic, determined lady from Tawruvillage, Mewat, Haryana. Despite coming from a poor background, she is determined to make the best of what life has to offer and provide good opportunities for her son.

Her husband worked as an accountant in a building construction firm but lost his job during the pandemic. Then he tried running a cart selling vegetables but could not make it a viable proposition.

Sunita heard about the Kamalini Vocational Training Center from one of her friends. To try to help support the family, Sunita decided to take up beautician skills training. She had to leave her son with her mother so that she could attend the course at Kamalini. 

Sunita found it tough to get money to buy the beauty products she needed for the course. Looking into her financial status, Kamalini got a sponsorship for her to avail the products needed for training. 

Sunita is extremely happy with the Kamalini course in beauty, make-up and hair. She says that unlike training in a boutique, where a very superficial teaching is done, she finds that the course here is very thorough giving both theory and complete practical knowledge. After she completed the training, Sunita managed to land a job as an instructor at a reputed skills training academy. For Sunita, it’s great to be earning an income and it’s a step toward fulfilling her dream to start her own academy someday.

See and hear Sunita in her own words at Sunita's Impact Story.

For more information, visit www.kamalini.org.

To donate by check:
Make check out to American Initiatives for Social Development with the memo line “Kamalini” and send to:

American Initiatives for Social Development
PO Box 1670
New York, NY 10156-1670