BENGALURU: Bagepalli, barely 100 km north of this city, on the Bengaluru-Hyderabad stretch of NH-7, is seeing some buzz. Accenture has zeroed in on this village town to break some gender barriers. The global professional services company, in partnership with READ India, is trying to improve the employability and livelihood of over 150 underprivileged women and young girls.
The handholding initiative at the rural community development centre aims to provide not just work-skills training in computers, local crafts, sewing or stitching but also boost women’s self-confidence, enable them to take decisions and help them to read and write. READ India, the Indian arm of the Rural Education and Development (READ) Global, opened its first community resource library in India way back in 2008. READ Global is a non-profit organisation operating in rural South Asia and headquartered in San Francisco, California. The centre will have a multimedia and communications room, an IT area for ICT-based learning, a library and places where women can attend classes, participate in trainings and receive medical examinations. Sarva Dharma Samanvaya Trust, which has been running a school for children at Bagepalli since 2001, is providing the space for the centre. Over 850 rural households lie within 5km radius of it. “The rural development centre is an extension of our collaborative work to bring systematic change within a community,” said Rekha M Menon, managing director of Accenture in India.