Vocational training for Women of all communities
The Vocational Training Centre of Sri Lanka Muslim Women’s Conference is an institution Registered under the Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission under the Registration no.P01/0759. (TVEC)
We create an opportunity to woman of lower income families to bring out their talents by training skills in different vocations such as Dress Making, Machine Embroidery, Hand & Ribbon Embroidery, Cookery, Cake Icing, Bakery, Beauty Culture, Computer and Spoken English etc. The training given enables them to enhance their talent and skills to empower them economically and encourage to be self supportive.
" Empowering women to be Independent and self supportive. "
" To uplift the status of women economically, socially, morally,
to improve and assist women by paving the way for a successful future. "
It was in 1975 when I was appointed to be principal of Muslim Ladies’ College that the idea of an umbrella organization was born. I worked in the National area of women but now I felt I should involve myself in the Muslim Women’s Organization. These organizations were working very effectively in the social and welfare areas of the society but it was felt that they should widen their activities and extend a wider outreach into areas in the present context. 1975 was declared the International Women’s Year and subsequently (1976-85) was focused on as the Women’s Decade. The Muslim Women’s Organizations needed to widen their scope to work in the economic, political and cultural movements and work at programmes to enhance the status of women, their empowerment in areas such as leadership, gender equity inter faith, intra faith programme and skills promotion in diverse vocational activities. Another reason was that the community needed a network to promote immediate action and sustainable projects to cope with man-made disaster and natural disaster and an umbrella organization with a collective of organizations in the capital and the regions would well serve the purpose. The building of a Sri Lankan identity with a community identity. In focus also was another objective and into this was built cultural and religious traditions. The latter programme was undertaken on a foundation of study and research so that the ideals of the Quran to be manifested in documents such as the Marriage and Divorce Act so that justice and equity are the principals adhered to in the community. The organization was founded in 1978 as the SLMWC ‘The Muslim Woman’ was the organization journal for nationwide communication.
We of the Sri Lanka Muslim Women’s Conference did some brainstorming and arrived at the unanimous conclusion that our primary objective should be to elevate poverty among needy women by providing vocational training especially for school leavers, school dropouts, widows and the needy as most often women have to carry the economic burden of the family. We derive satisfaction from the fact that our trainees have successfully found self-employment, more importantly that they have acquired a sense of self-esteem and confidence and gained the respect of their family members. After the successful completion of their courses the trainees are awarded a certificate which is recognized by the Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission and this serves as a passport for employment they so desire or equips them to set up a small business.