KOCHI, 26 December 2018 : A group of young women from fishing community in Ernakulam district has learnt a plethora of lessons to realise their dreams, including securing a profession matching their tastes.

The fourth batch of the Theeranaipunya project, an initiative of the Society for Assistance to the Fisherwomen (SAF) of the Fisheries Department to impart training for skill enhancement and capacity building, has successfully completed empowerment training from the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), which acted as a nodal agency to implement the project in Ernakulam district.

An initiative of social commitment, the CMFRI organised the two-month-long programme continuously for the fourth time with the support and guidance of the SAF.

The training programme, which started in October, focused on the cognitive development of young fisherwomen helping themselves transform their living standard into a better level.

A model initiative for women empowerment, the programme was primarily aimed at ensuring better employability to the fisher youth and making them financially self-reliant.

 In the first month of the programme, the CMFRI imparted training to the selected young women from the fishing community in the district on a slew of areas such as employability skills, interpersonal skills, communication, management, entrepreneurship, aptitude, motivation, self-improvement, communication, interpersonal skills, profiling, etc. aimed at gender mainstreaming of the fisherwomen.

During the next month, the trainees were sent to 35 different institutes or organizations in government and private sectors of their choice and interest, considering their future prospects of employment and career.

The participants were also guided in choosing appropriate academic programmes for higher studies and developing entrepreneurial tastes to become entrepreneurs.

As many as 40 unemployed young fisherwomen who have an educational qualification of plus two or above attended the Theeranaipunya training in its fourth batch.

CMFRI will extend further support to the participants to help them placed in better positions after the training.

Karthika Manoj from Njarakkal was selected as the best trainee of the batch while Lakshmi S Babu from Punithura and Sushmitha N from Vaikom bagged second and third places respectively.

CMFRI Principal Scientist Dr Shyasm S Salim is the course director of the Theeranaipunya project in Ernakulam.