Rural women ensuring well-being of Family and community during the Crisis-Naira’s story

Naira Ghuzarauli, a mother of eight children lives in the remote village of Omalo in East Georgia. The main source of income for her socially vulnerable family is horticulture. Naira and her husband take care of their children and mother-in-law, but the income from horticulture is not enough for a large family. Naira always wanted to do an additional work and help her family financially, as well as become more active.

For hope of a better future, Naira took part in a Women’s Economic Empowerment project. She participated in a grant competition and purchased two sewing machines, a table and a chair. Naira equipped one small room for sewing and started a new phase of her life with enthusiasm. For the development and improvement, Naira took a tailoring course as part of the project. “It was a big happiness for me to attend the course and I am very satisfied. Now I have improved my knowledge and can offer a better service to my customers”. Although Naira is a mother of eight children and is involved in family-care activities, she always manages to devote time to the sewing business and has been receiving small orders from her villagers for four months now. “With the help of the project, I started thinking about my life in a positive way, with hope”.

Naira was going to continue her activities as usual, but she had to focus on something more important as there was a lack of face masks due to the spread of COVID-19 in the country. That is why Naira started sewing multiple usable face masks and distributed 20 of them for free to about six local families. “I wanted to contribute my own resources during this hard period and help my people as much as possible.” Unfortunately, Naira wanted to sew much more, but she didn't have enough material for that. “Because of the current situation in the country, everything is closed in Akhmeta and I can't get any materials. If I had the opportunity, I would sew more face masks and provide it to the population for free. 

Life is never easy for the rural women, who have to care for the family and business at the same time. As an active woman living in rural area, Naira realizes well how important a woman’s role is in the family and especially, during these hard times: “A woman should always have her own income and should be independent as well as strong. Women especially living in rural areas are in need of help, as they are very limited and have no perspective of employment”.

The project “Women’s Economic Empowerment through Social Mobilization and Capacity Building” is funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), implemented by Kakheti Regional Development Foundation (KRDF), Taso Foundation (TF), and CARE International in the Caucasus (CARE).