Archana Women's Centre

Shortcuts

• Address
• Opening Hours
• Alerts
• Contact The Organization
• Claim ownership or report listing

• 

  Want your organization to be the top-listed Non Profit Organization in Kottayam?

Our Story

Archana Women’s centre is the Kerala wing of Jyothi Jeevapoorna Trust (JJPT ) registered under the Indian Trust Act (Reg No.50) . The trust is run by the Secular Institute – The Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate. The centre was started under the leadership of Miss Thresiamma Mathew in the year 2004 at Thellakom near Kottayam. It was erected to challenge the conventional male centered concept of development by empowering the marginalized and under privileged women in the society and arm them with the weapon of self reliance and dignity. AWC is determined not to follow the traditional jobs which keep women low paid, low in status and low in self image, instead, they try to initiate more and more women especially from the construction sector who are destined to stay as helper for all their life to the dignified and highly paid jobs of masonry, carpentry, ferro cement technology, bamboo technology etc. For, Thresiamma Mathew already had long years of experience in challenging the traditional roles of women from the time she first held the hands of the poorly paid, ill treated helper women to become the skilled and powerful master in the construction scenario -the mason. It was in 1989, when Thresiamma Mathew was involved in a Dutch Danish supported water supply and sanitation program with the Socio Economic Units Kerala that she first launched the path breaking cultural shock of initiating women to wield the trowel and mend the pendulum that marks the power and the authority of the mason. She noticed with pain in her heart that women work hard from morning in the latrine construction project but earns barely one fourth of a mason’s pay. It was this pathetic scenario, that led Miss Thresiamma Mathew, to initiate training programmes to impart masonry skills to these women . Now her struggle for equality, equity and justice and equal pay for equal jobs for women is carried on through the establishment of Archana Women’s Centre. AWC with its wide variety of skill training programmes aimed at empowering women, now stands tall in its various achievements, trainings and innovative programmes. AWC believes in the actual empowerment of women physically, mentally and psychologically through intellectual awareness and devolution of skills. While the mastery of these skills emancipate women from the clutches of societal servitude, the implementation of these skills empower them to strike at the roots of poverty and its consequent ills. The various training and placement programmes instituted by Archana has also been founded on this principle. AWC was an active partner in implementing an integrated village development programme in collaboration with the Gramvikas Kendra an official extension service agency of the Mahatma Gandhi University. During this time AWC mobilised and facilitated the participation of women in the neighbourhood through self help groups and provided training to women in masonry and aided the implementation of other programmes related to education water and sanitation. Moving on thereafter the AWC established itself as an independent unit at Thellakom near Kottayam. The prime focus of the institute is to train women in unconventional trades like Building technology, Carpentry, Ferrocement technology and Production of hollow bricks. The other areas that we concentrate include Construction Supervision (Civil), Garment production, Home science courses, Beautician Course, Jewellry making, Flower arrangement, Rain water harvesting, Water conservation & Waste management etc.