Completed Projects
1. Women Empowerment through Enterprise Development (WEED) Project (February 2020 – January 2021 in Partnership with Mustard Seed Foundation)
The project team conducted community meetings for project orientation at Rimsha Masih Colony, Sector H-9/2, Islamabad. The project team developed a form to collect data of female domestic workers in the target community. Short listing of female domestic workers was done to select the most deserving women. The shortlisted women were then called for an interview for final selection. 30 female domestic workers were selected. After the selection process, project team formed a group of 30 selected female domestic workers. Project team organized a session on team building for the group for group formation.
The project team organized a 3 day training workshop on enterprise development for the group. All 30 selected women participated in the training workshop. The training focused on following topics:
- Identification of a business
- Business planning
- Mobilizing business resources
- Administrative procedure
- Infrastructure (location, building, transport facilities)
- Displaying goods
- Dealing with customers
- Determination of profit and loss
- Book keeping
- Promotion of business
The project team facilitated 25 women from the women group for purchasing of their business items as per their business plans that were developed during the enterprise development training workshop. The project team helped the women in setting up their businesses. Business incubation ceremony was held for each business established in the target community. The project also conducted follow up visits to the project beneficiaries to provide them with on-job technical support for their businesses.
2. Vocational and Discipleship Training for Christian Youth (March 2021 – February 2022 in Partnership with Cornerstone Trust)
The project was a complete package for the targeted youth at Rimsha Masih Colony, Sector H-9/2, Islamabad. It was a holistic development project which took care of all the needs of its beneficiaries including personal, spiritual, physical and social. This project provided an opportunity to 30 young people including 12 male and 18 female to look into themselves and explore what potentials are hidden deep inside them. They explored strengthens and weaknesses of all aspects of their lives including personal, spiritual, physical and social.
They participated in a 3-day training workshop on discipleship. This training was a wonderful spiritual experience for them because it was their first discipleship training in which they participated. Everything they learned about discipleship in the training was new for them. All of them committed that they would practically follow what they have learned from the training. They also participated in 3 trainings including (1) enterprise development training, (2) employability skills training and (3) career counseling training. They gained entrepreneurial skills during enterprise development and trainer also introduced them with local micro finance institutions from where they could get micro loans to start their own small businesses. These trainings imparted soft skills among them which enabled them to have sustainable livelihoods for themselves.
Mercy Trust also established a community based vocational centre for women in which 10 female youth beneficiaries out 30 youth received vocational training on beautician and stitching skills. They have become technical hands. Now they can go for jobs or start their own small businesses at domestic level. Furthermore, the community based vocational centre for women is providing vocational trainings to other girls and women in the target community.