Syro Malankara Catholic Church trains entrepreneurs as part of people upliftment program

Trivandrum archdiocese of the indigenous Syro-Malankara Church is offering professional training to poor entrepreneurs from villages in this southern Indian district.

The trainees are taught fundamentals of management, budgeting, marketing and resource mobilization, which will help them open new industries and find self-employment, said archdiocesan social work director Father Thomas Varghese Vattaparambil.

The training will qualify entrepreneurs to receive help from Church-backed credit unions here. The archdiocese has 105 credit unions formed by villagers and 35 credit unions are involved in the training program.

Each of the 35 unions will send 10 participants for the program conducted by a professional training agency, Father Vattaparambil told UCA News.

Challa Muthu, a trainee, said the program has “showed us professional ways of accounting. We had never heard of budget for a small business.”

Father Vattaparambil said the entrepreneurship development program is among several schemes the archdiocese has launched for village development.

The agro-industrial archdiocese headed by Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios, an award-winning economics scholar of Kerala University, offers a self-employment program to help some 700 rural people with loans up to 12,000 rupees (US$387), including 40 percent subsidy.

Another project, Janasoubhagya (people´s welfare) imparts legal education to activists, organizes ecological and environmental programs for the poor and promotes rural health, Father Vattaparambil said.

The archdiocese´s six Jeevavardhini (life enhancement) centers promote education among rural women. The centers provide training to young women in house keeping, health, environment, nutrition and media education.

Women are also taught handicrafts as a means of supplementary income.

Source: UCA News