SEAPCP Website

Thanam, Malaysia

I'm just want share one idea. Welfare department of Malaysia introduce baby sitting course for housewives and single mothers. The housewives and single mothers need attend the baby sitting course for one week and they'll given participation certificates. These mother scan use that certificates to start their career as baby sitter and welfare department will give playing material ( which cost RM 500) freely to these mothers. They can use their own houses as a place to care the kids. They can take and care maximum 9 kids. Later they can apply grant from welfare department to develop their career. All material, caring rules and ways teach in the course. So housewives and single mothers can spend more times at home, with their kids and also can do other work. Is it possible if you can practice in your country? If it is possible, you can have informal meeting and awareness training to these women...

dewi struggling with motherhood

Dewi (SEAPCP) Bali Indonesia

Think creatively.. that's the thing I am thinking of lately, how to be creative on finding what we can do as housewife to raise income while baby sitting our children at home hehehe. I find lot of housewives in my surrounding area face the same problems, they are very willing to earn extra money but have limited mobilization to go out from the house. I want to be with them, but not too creative to find solutions how to do it! Can you share some stories of home production stuff? thanks

Narumi, (Hokkaido Japan)

village women doing online business?

mama Narumi

Dear great people, I was reading all emails. I am impressed by so much active implementation of C.O. by all of you from all we have learnt! Happy to know that! Dewi, thanks for your comment, actually, i am also searching for exactly the same thing, and have always been thinking about it. Do mother have only 1 choice in order to earn money--to leave their children in the nursery school? Or forget socialized work and stay home...(also fun, sometimes.. but not all the time hopefully). If she can stay at home and home production is a choice, every mother will seriously think about it, I know it! Using computers, I've found some jobs like writing blogs, affiliate programs, data acquisition, I didn't choose any of those, because...there are many off-color web sites like porno, gossip..I only have a feeling about this but I don't really know the reality, though.

SOHO style jobs for some professional are like homepage production, web development, software development, correcting press, translation and design. Professional work is difficult to get because most jobs are subcontracted from the big companies, and they want experienced works, so for those with no experience, but want to get sort of decent work it is a very small gate.

Another one is starting business by mothers themselves. I've found one company for mothers for work. They produce clothes for lactation-period mothers, and staff members. They take their children to the office and work, and decide how many hours they work a day, it is left up to each person. The founder of the company is also a mother.

Another example is cooperative cafe combined with day care center & after school care in the community. One NGO manages the cafe and the center. Cafe is open to every body in the community. Also, they have Japanese lesson for foreigners. The NGO has friends in the Philippines, their objective is international cooperation, education, community bond. I feel cooperative day care center is a good way to go, and start small community business with mothers who have same direction. Think creatively, yeees.. not creating money making like forged banknotes.. not creative!.. hehe.

Hassan (Pakistan)

Hasan the organiser

Good to read that lot of info from Narumi. Seems like Japan has lots of options for mothers to work in a more facilitative way. But that's kind ambitius for low literate countries like Pakistan but we'll definitely try it some day. Here is what we have been doing with in order to facilitate mothers in earning some extra money and also improving nutriution for their children:

This initiative is called "Passing on the Gift Program" (PoG). In this case, we organize rural women to form small village-level women cooperatives. We provide each family (each mother) 3 goats. They milk the goats and sell some portion in market to get some extra income and use some portion of milk as part of nutrition to their children as well. However, one importance condition for women to be eligible to receive these goats is they promise or make written contract with us, that once these goats produce baby goats they will pass them on to other need families in their own area. So we passed on a gift to them, and they will pass on the baby goats as gifts to other women. So this way there is a chain of passing on the gifts continues.

Additionally, there is a huge process involved at back before we provide them goats... just to facilitate them to think through their problems and how then can work collectively.. but that process still needs improvements....you can read more about it on Heifer International's website, they are ones to come up with the idea. Specially, I want to include some CO process that I learnt at CO course 2008 in the next similar initiative that we are gong to start.

Goats or computers, income generating from home needs creativity