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Women empowerment & Gender equity:
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Hyderabad is a city with varying communities and culture of confining the women to the house itself even in poverty and famine. Apart from this, people from neighbouring villages / districts come to the city in search of lively hood and live in slums. These people are provided an opportunity to raise the nursery in their homestead to get extra income.
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HMDA (erstwhile HUDA) every year conducted training programmes in basic elements of nursery raising and maintenance to the women in its nursery centers under GHEP Project. After training, poorest of the poor women (below poverty line) were selected from the women groups identified for taking up homestead nurseries.
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Soil mixture, poly bags, seed and fertilizers were supplied to the women at their door steps by HMDA. The women during leisure time render labour and rear the saplings. HMDA (erstwhile HUDA) bought back the saplings for utilization and planting.
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So far 6800 women were trained and involved them in nursery raising activity. About 110 lakh seedlings were raised by these women as part-time activity, which were used in the mammoth afforestation programme of making Hyderabad more greener. An amount of Rs. 261.77 lakhs has been disbursed to the women through cheques on buy back concept.
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Overall impact on gender development
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- Initiation into nursery work leading to formation of groups thereby encouraging them in the field of micro credit and thrift
- The financial status of women in particular and the family in general is upgraded
- In view of the enhancement of the financial status, the women members are getting the due share of decision making in the family affairs
- The social status of the women and family members is considerably improved
- There is spectacular overall gender development leading to poverty alleviation
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Women’s nursery programme has helped them in moving out of their restricted private sphere into an interface with outside world of public services and market place. Garland making and vegetable vending is an outcome of this.
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This group cohesion has resulted in women empowerment; this is reflected at Girkapally as men share their work whenever there are free.
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| Number of women groups in the other parts of HUDA area have successfully utilized this programme and have built up enterprises like candle making, stitching of travel bags, basket making, production of ornamental flower plants, running of small hotels, Kirana shops etc. as a spinoff effect.
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The women succeeded in investing the money earned through this programme for the betterment of the health of the whole family.
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Green Lung Spaces
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Institutional open lands, owned by military cantonments, universities, and industries such as Bharat Heavy Electrical, Hindustan Aeronautics, Defence Research and Development Laboratories in urban areas are intended to be used, besides available open lands for creating city forests. These lands with institutions were mostly barren without any tree growth and remained as such on account of lack of priority in the scheme of their activities. Once put under tree cover these lands could provide clean air. Other utilitarian values are not excluded and would depend on site planning mentioned later. Species will be chosen with relevance to other locality factors.
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<<back to urban forestry>>
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