Women farmers in three villages (Shelle Mella, Chano Mille and Faragossa) were organized
and formed 3 cotton spinning associations. The main goal of the association was to empower
women economically, and engage them in decision making and other social activities. The
associations have been working on the production of hand spun yarn from locally grown
cotton. They were linked with local traditional clothe producer handcrafts cooperative which
was their direct market link. They also used their yarns to produce traditional clothes by
contracting local weavers. This value addition and market link served as an additional source
of income for women farmers.
Women empowerment trainings on leadership, financial management, income generation was
given for lead women farmers in the association in 2015 and 2016. The 2016 training
workshop was conducted to discuss their strengths, challenges and opportunities in their
respective villages focusing on the market and value addition aspects. Representative from the
zone marketing and cooperatives department were involved in the workshop and showed a
promising start to support the associations mainly by giving trainings on financial and
cooperatives management. Head of a local handcraft cooperative called JANO, took part in
the workshop and agreed to take all the hand spun yarns from the associations. The head of
JANO pointed out that signing bilateral agreements between their cooperative and the
spinning associations is a vital market tie with details of requirements agreed between the two
parties. This created an opportunity and a better local market link for the associations.
