In order to help more rural women find jobs or start their own businesses, northeast China\u2019s Jilin province has implemented free training programmes to train them in handicraft skills and e-commerce skills.
\nAfter participating in the training programmes, an increasing number of women in rural areas gained practical skills, found jobs, and witnessed steady growth in their income.
\nShao Mingshuang, a resident in Nanshandao village, Jilin city Jilin province, has learned straw plaiting skills at a training session. \u201cI usually use more red threads so that the small basket looks more festive,\u201d Shao said, sharing her experience in handicraft making.
\n \u201cI can earn more than ten yuan (about $1.54) for each basket I make. Thanks to the training, I\u2019m able to make a living with my skills,\u201d Shao added happily.
\nWhen she was younger, Shao broke her spine and had since been disabled. She often feels pain in the cervical and lumbar vertebrae, and her upper body can\u2019t stretch up straight. Because of her physical condition, Shao had difficulty finding a job.
\nAfter her husband died, Shao had no source of income and merely lived on subsistence allowance from the government and the money from the transfer of her land-use right to others and sewing clothes for neighbors.
\nAt that time, she only earned about 5,000 yuan a year and was so poor that she couldn\u2019t afford to buy new clothes for years.
\nIn August 2016, the women\u2019s federation and disabled persons\u2019 federation of Jilin National High-tech Industrial Development Zone got in touch with Shao to inform her that she could learn straw plaiting skills at a free training session held in Chaijia village, a village near Shao\u2019s hometown. She was also told that besides training people in handicraft skills, the training session even provided free materials, meals and accommodation for participants.
\nShao watched with interest how participants at the training session turned corn leaves into exquisite handicrafts. \u201cThe training was perfect for me, as the skills don\u2019t require much physical strength and I can finish the work at home,\u201d she said.
\nBased on her sewing experience, Shao soon became skilled at straw plaiting. With the technique, she can now earn about 1,000 yuan more a month than before.
\nWhile benefiting from the straw plaiting training session, Shao also consulted workers at the local disabled persons\u2019 federation about other kinds of training courses.
\nOver the past five years, Shao has participated in training courses on paper-cutting, Chinese knot, embroidery, calligraphy and other handicraft skills. \u201cAlthough I have just learned the basic techniques, my horizons have been broadened because of these incredible crafts,\u201d Shao noted.
\nIn recent years, Jilin province has carried out such training courses across the province, asking women\u2019s federations at all levels to invite handicraftsmen to teach rural women and unemployed women in urban areas for free.
\nTaking advantage of local natural resources and folk culture, the province has organized training courses on over 20 kinds of handicrafts, including straw plaiting, matryoshka doll painting and resin craftwork making, benefiting over 60,000 people.
\nTo help sell the handicrafts, Jilin province has adopted an order-based training model, under which enterprises place orders for handicrafts from training bases before training sessions and women make relevant products according to the orders after receiving training.
\nIt is estimated that since it was launched, the handicraft skills training programme has enabled over 80,000 women to either startup businesses or work at home, bringing them an average annual income of over 5,000 yuan each. So far, the sales of handicrafts produced under the programme have exceeded 400 million yuan.
\nTogether with the commerce bureau of Jilin city, women\u2019s federation in Jilin city has also rolled out a training programme on online marketing and other Internet-related skills. Meanwhile, they have also made efforts to help women open online stores and provide e-commerce beginners with places, facilities and warehouses free of charge as well as logistics services at below market price.
\nSo far, Jilin city has trained about 1,200 e-commerce practitioners under the programme. Many rural women have combined e-commerce with handicraft making, with more and more rural women leveraging live-streaming to promote their products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In order to help more rural women find jobs or start their own businesses, northeast China\u2019s Jilin province has implemented free training programmes to train them in handicraft skills and e-commerce skills. After participating in the training programmes, an increasing number of women in rural areas gained practical skills, found jobs, and witnessed steady growth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-211788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n