the improvement of their political, socio-economic and health status and self-sufficiency towards achieving inclusive and sustainable development. Through its engagement strategies—advocacy, capacity building, research and networking, the organization works to ensure full participation and partnership of women and men in productive and reproductive life, including shared responsibilities for the care and nurturing of children and maintenance of the household.
The organization works to alleviate the threat to women’s lives, health, and well-being as a result of being overburdened with work and of their lack of power and influence. It empowers women to receive formal education in showcasing their knowledge, abilities and coping mechanisms to attain healthy and fulfilling lives. Through regular field-based research and fact-findings, MAMA Centre creates a socio-economic empowerment platform that enables women to innovatively improve on the existing income-generating activities, save more money, develop financial literacy, and diversify in other income-generating activities. In addition to increasing women’s access to financial services, the organization priorities skills learning and capacity building, self-esteem, increasing access to information and resources and promoting collective action among women in community associations.
The organization trains women to form self-organized and self-managed associations, each consisting of 30 to 50 members, to harmonise their socio-economic challenges, develop their areas of expectations and priority as advocacy ASKs for policy and legislative interventions. In order to change required policy and programme actions that would improve women’s access to secure livelihoods and economic resources, alleviate their extreme responsibilities with regard to housework, remove legal impediments to their participation in public life, MAMA Centre raises social awareness through effective programmes of education and mass communication.
Mama Centre works to improve the status of local women and enhance their decision-making capacity at all levels in all spheres of life including sexuality and reproduction. In order to improve the political and socio-economic status of women and other marginalised groups, the organization prioritizes strategic empowerment programmes and activities such as regular policy and legislative advocacy for established mechanisms for women’s equal participation and equitable representation at all levels of the political process and public life in each community to enable them articulate their concerns and desires; capacity building programmes that promote the fulfilment of women’s potential through education, skill development and employment, giving cognizance to the importance of elimination of poverty, illiteracy and ill-health among women.
It works to eliminating all practices that discriminate against women and other marginalised groups and assist them to establish and realize their socio-economic, health and political rights. MAMA Centre advocates appropriate measures to improve women’s ability to earn income in and beyond traditional occupations, achieve economic self-reliance, and ensure women’s equal access to the labour market and social security systems within and outside each community. As related to violence against women, the Centre holds strong advocacy and capacity building to raise policy and legislative conscious on existing local and international laws, regulations and other appropriate measures to eliminate violence, discriminatory practices by households and employers against women including those related to pregnancy status, child-bearing, breastfeeding and child-rearing.
