Skills training empowers women in securing employment

Shao Mingshuang, a villager who suffered from physical disabilities, used to have no source of income apart from the basic living allowance provided by the government. After learning grass-weaving, she now earns an extra 1,000 yuan per month. Before she joined the training program, she earned just 5,000 yuan a year.

Wu Yunping (first from left) teaches villagers to make grass-weaving products. (Photo/Liu Yiqing)

“Thanks to the training program, I have mastered skills with which I can make a living,” Shao said, while showing a little basket she had just made. “I can make a basket like this in a short period of time, and earn more than 10 yuan from each basket,” she said.

The training program Shao mentioned - Jilin Qiaojie (Qiaojie means craftswomen) - was jointly launched by the Women’s Association and Disabled Persons Federation of Gaoxin district of Jilin city, northeast China’s Jilin province.

The program provides free courses on more than 20 skills, including grass weaving, textile-making, embroidery, sewing, and sculpting. So far, it has trained more than 60,000 people in Jilin province.

In recent years, the program has been introduced to cities across Jilin province, benefiting more women from rural areas, unemployed women in urban areas, and other women who have difficulties in securing a job.

Zhang Chenggang, director of the Research Center for New Employment Patterns in Capital University of Economics and Business in Beijing, said the program has given women who can’t afford training more access to obtaining or improving their skills.

Just after the training program kicked off, Wu Yunping, a woman from Chaijiacun village in Jilin city, signed up for the grass weaving class. She encouraged her fellow villagers to join her, but they were put off by the distance between the village and the school, which was located in Changchun city.

“I want to create a better life for myself, and I also want my fellow villagers to do the same thing,” said Wu, who is head of the village’s women’s affairs.

 In 2015, Wu contacted the Women’s Association of Jilin and expressed her hope of keeping the villagers occupied during the slack farming season. Then she hit upon the idea of teaching them grass-weaving.

In 2016, a weaving class was launched in Chaijiacun village, and more than 80 people signed up for the courses. To date, half the women in the village have been trained.

With the assistance of the women’s association, Wu founded a farmers’ cooperative, inviting more than 20 people, including left-behind and impoverished women, to learn skills that would allow them to make a living. In 2018, women from Wu’s village took part in a skills competition in Jilin province and won the innovation award. Wu is also a patent holder for more than 10 kinds of handworks.

Thanks to the training program, about 80,000 women have become flexibly employed or started their own businesses. According to statistics, the sales of the handworks made by women under the program have surpassed 400 million yuan.

Last year, Wu learnt livestreaming in a class that taught women how to use internet technologies to sell their products. After that, she opened an account on a short video platform. “Look, there are more than 500 people watching us making grass weaving products,” Wu said excitedly.

At present, there are 1,200 women in Jilin city who have both mastered grass-weaving skills and livestreaming.