Role of NGO in Empowering Women Employees in Pokhara Valley: A Study of NGOs and Employee’s Perspective

Abstract

Empowerment is one of the effective approaches to uplift the condition of women. The GOs, NGOs and INGOs are focusing on programs which help women being empowered. These organizations are helping female employees being empowered by giving them employment opportunities and various training exposures.

The research is confined to the Non-Governmental Organizations in Pokhara valley which are providing opportunities for women to be independent and career development with different programs and projects. This research has assessed whether these organizations are successful to empower women and change their socio-economic status in the society. In addition to this, the study has explored to what extent age, education, caste, family support, organizational support, training, mobility and decision making in various sphere of their professional and personal life have affected the process of empowerment.

Based on the research objectives, the study has tried to trace the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in empowering working women in different sectors. The specific objectives of the study were to identity the factors influencing empowerment of women working in different organizations and how the women are being benefited from different programs/activities introduced by these organizations. The outcomes of the research are quite encouraging as the situation of female staff has improved as compared to a decade ago. However, males are in permanent job and holding higher positions in most of the organizations whereas females are in temporary job and holding non-officer positions.

The study shows that only few of the lady staff are holding the masters degree and very few have technical backgrounds. The offices seem to have given priority to experienced people and local while recruiting them. In each and every office there is dominance of Brahmins & Chhetris (more than 60%) as a normal situation in the country. Those who are heads of the organizations, half of them are Chhetris and rest are Brahmins. More than half of the staff are Brahmins and Chhetris; Janajatis and Dalits are very negligible in number.

Nearly one third of the interviewees got promoted during their job tenure. Those who didn't get promoted were due to lack of education and in some cases due to over age. Though female staff seem to have been exposed to national capacity building programs, they lack international exposures. Majority of the training/ exposure receivers are Brahmin & Chhetris. Mostly lady staff with children are not getting enough opportunities to be involved in exposure or other capacity development activities especially going outside of their house due to their household responsibilities.

It is worth-mentioning that more than eighty percent of the lady staff have control over their income and are also contributing to their family expenditures. With the change of time women have also started to contribute financially in the family as previously the family used to be dependent only on males.

There seems contradiction in the response to the availability of organizational resources to female staffs. On one hand, 60% of the female respondents claimed to have them involved in decision making process, on the other hand the head of the organizations or their representatives have claimed to have involved all the staff in the decision/ policy making process. Those whose education level was below SLC, they hold lower position in the organization hence had no involvement in such process. In some organizations due to complicated hierarchical composition, even higher level staffs are not involved in such process.

In male-dominated society like ours gender discrimination is very rampant in all the sectors. But with the change of time and due to wide media intervention through television, papers and radios, people have started to look the female population as equal contributor to society in every sector. During the time of interview more than eighty percent opined that they didn't feel about being discriminated. Those who felt being sexually harassed didn't approach their seniors or office management. Unmarried females were more exposed to sexual harassment than married ones.

There is a positive perception from organization heads that female employees can be more capable if given opportunities. Males being dominating in nature, tries to seize all the opportunities available in the organization. However, this is imperative for women to be aware of own rights and capability and believe in self to change the situation and mind set of people in the society.