In a ceremony attended by Iran’s Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Ensiyeh Khazali, Managing Director of Barakat Foundation Mohammad Torkamaneh, 11,500 Barakat employment and entrepreneurship projects for bread-winning women in deprived and rural areas of the country were inaugurated and a memorandum of cooperation was inked between the Barakat Foundation of the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order and Iran’s Vice President for Women and Family Affairs.
Focusing on the livelihoods of special, vulnerable parts of society and immunizing them against social harms, Torkamaneh said that in developing programs, special importance was considered for entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency of bread-winning women throughout the country, adding that so far 11,500 projects in more than 1,900 villages in 350 cities of the country has been achieved by bread-winning women.
He reiterated that operating the 11,500 employment plans has created business opportunities for nearly 35,000 people directly and indirectly.
As much as 13,770 billion rials is the total volume of investment to launch employment projects for bread-winning women, he underlined.
Referring to the memorandum of cooperation between Iran’s Vice President for Women and Family Affairs and the Barakat Foundation of Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order, he noted that joint cooperation in the implementation of employment projects including domestic as well as small and medium-sized workshop businesses and supporting entrepreneurs with an emphasis on technological, innovative and commercialization projects are among the main themes of this memorandum of cooperation.
Emphasizing special support for bread-winning women, Torkamaneh underscored that launching 5,000 community-based employment plans for bread-winning women during this year is on the Foundation's agenda, of which 1,100 have been put into operation up to now.
Pointing to the employment projects for women of the Barakat Foundation, he said that Barakat Foundation has allocated 82,000 projects to women, especially bread-winning women, to eliminate economic inequality, create suitable and sustainable job opportunities in deprived areas, and help to establish social justice.
Managing Director of Barakat Foundation noted that in this regard, events such as the national event "Lady Barakat" with the aim of entrepreneurship in the field of domestic and family businesses for women have been held in the fields of designing native models to increase the presence of women in the areas of family economy and home businesses, to enhance the economic participation of women, to boost the social network of women entrepreneurs of Barakat Foundation and to present the creative industries projects in women's business.
Torkamaneh added that the operated jobs for bread-winning women are in 20 categories and the most important of them include animal husbandry, handicrafts, bag production, shoes and clothing, technical jobs, poultry breeding, and greenhouses.
Also, out of 800 socio-economic facilitators of Barakat Foundation throughout the country, more than 40% are indigenous educated women, he reiterated.
Torkamaneh said that all 31 provinces of the country are covered by Barakat employment activities for women and bread-winning women.
He announced the launch of 30,500 community-based employment plans for vulnerable social strata this year and said that these social strata include bread-winning women, kulbars, families of martyrs and veterans, seminarians and their families, disabled families, families of children with disabilities, families of children who have returned to their villages.
In the end, the Managing Director of Barakat Foundation emphasized in line with its central mission for economic empowerment, entrepreneurship, and job creation in deprived areas, the Foundation has so far managed to implement 193,000 community-based projects with the capacity to create 579,000 direct and indirect jobs in deprived and rural areas throughout the country.
**Leveraging people, jihadi forces
The Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, for her part, said at this ceremony that extensive pathology has been done in the 13th government regarding bread-winning women, and barriers to attracting credit for the employment of these women are being overcome.
Khazali added that the motto of the 13th government is to help people's credibility and using from their own power for themselves, and in creating jobs for bread-winning women, the people and jihadi forces should also be used.
Announcing the finalization of the comprehensive program of empowerment of bread-winning women, she underlined that at the beginning of the sixth economic development plan there were 3 million and 500 thousand bread-winning women in the country, which we hope by the end of the seventh program we will not have any bread-winning women in the society that cannot provide their livelihoods.
The Vice President for Women and Family Affairs noted that one of the problems regarding the employment of bread-winning women was the limited number of job categories that have been resolved by the efforts of the Barakat Foundation.
