CB BureauThe UN Environment Programme (UNEP), clean-energy company ReNew Power, and Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) have launched a partnership in the Indian state of Gujarat to teach women from the informal sector skills that will allow them to work in the clean-energy industry.
The multi-pronged programme will facilitate the training of salt-pan workers from the Rann of Kutch in solar-power technologies to help them leapfrog from traditional energy sources to renewable and clean energy and new livelihood opportunities. The initiative, which will kick off in Gujarat in early 2022 with an estimated 1,000 women, will see salt-pan workers trained as solar panel and solar pump technicians across SEWA training centres and ReNew Power’s facilities in the state, with technical training provided by Electronics Sector Skills Council of India (ECCI).
ReNew Power, while supporting the training at its facilities, will look at supporting employment for these women in collaboration with other renewable-energy companies in Gujarat.
Stating that the programme ‘has the potential to scale and be replicated across many parts of the country,’ Atul Bagai, head of UNEP’s India Country Office, assures that the organisation will ‘support corporates such as ReNew and associations such as SEWA in such initiatives that provide women with skills and employment while simultaneously fighting climate change.’