The District Hub for Empowerment of Women is meant to provide “ one stop convergent support services for empowering rural women with opportunities for skill development, employment, digital literacy, health and nutrition”. The scheme will provide an interface for rural women to approach the government for availing their entitlements and for empowering them through awareness generation, training and capacity building. DHEW act as a link between local Administrative, state government and Ministry of women and child Development for implementing women centric schemes and programme of the government.
The District Hub for Empowerment of Women (DHEW) will have a specialized team. The team will comprise of gender specialist, specialist for awareness generation & convergence, financial literacy and economic empowerment of women. The DHEW will have 3-4 staff for administrative work. The activities under Hew will be implemented up to the Gram Panchayat level and will be facilitated through District level hubs, which will serve as the focal points
Functions: Some of the specific activities to be included under Hubs at various levels are:
- To act as PMU for all Components under Mission Shakti
- To bridge the information and knowledge gap regarding schemes and facilities available for women.
- To sensitise and build capacity of government functionaries at National/State/ District/ Block level and orient them about various schemes/ Programs meant for empowering rural women.
- To facilitate convergent action through frontline workers to spread awareness about government schemes, programme and services (as mentioned above) and motivate rural women to join various programs meant for their development and help in improving access.
- Organize awareness campaigns involving grassroots level for gender equity and convergence and awareness generation which fuels demand by women as rightful entitlement holders for delivery of services under different schemes/programs meant for them.
- Facilitate women in preparation of documents for establishing identity for enrolling in government programme through existing government mechanisms like BPL survey, Aadhaar (UID), MNREGS enrolment which can be utilized for establishing identity through CSCs.
- Bring issues affecting women as an agenda before National/ State/ Districts/ Block/ Gram Panchayats for suitable redressal.
- Creating a common platform at the delivery level with focus on women-centric schemes/ programme.
- To identify best practices (Government, CSO, PRI) in various sectoral areas like health, education, microfinance, livelihoods, etc. from a gender perspective, document initiatives and disseminate the same to intended recipients.
- It will engage in feedback collection, evaluation and analysis of all initiatives of MWCD and other Ministries/ Departments of GoI pertaining to women and girls.
- To act as a forum for addressing women’s issues in the near vicinity and give women a platform to come together and explore their potentials and possibilities.
- Provide easy access to informational and other resources to the community members for effective participation in Gram Sabhas and PRIs.
- To increase women’s participation in the functioning of PRI institutions and village level institutions like Anganwadi Centres.
- Mobilize women to participate in Gram Sabha meetings.