Kapan Women’s Resource Center fosters women’s economic empowerment through garment manufacturing
The Kapan Women’s Resource Center NGO (KWRC) helps empower women in Kapan, Armenia, by helping them earn a living in the textile industry. Financial support provided through the European Union funded “COVID-19: Civil Society Resilience and Sustainability” project helped the organization to overcome economic hardship caused by the pandemic and to continue promoting social entrepreneurship in the textile industry.
“This project contributed to the resilience of our organization. Due to the institutional support, we were able to purchase a large amount of raw materials and to increase the rates of clothing manufacturing. A store – ‘ArtIn Fashion’ – has been opened in the centre of Kapan city, which gave popularity to our brand amongst the locals.”
Kristine Saghatelyan, President of Kapan Women Resource Center
For ten years, Kapan Women’s Resource Center (KWRC) has been working to improve women’s rights and reduce gender inequality in the town of Kapan, in Southeast Armenia, close to the border with Azerbaijan. When the pandemic started, the NGO, whose trademark is promoting social entrepreneurship through garment manufacturing, struggled to pay salaries and rental costs. Thanks to emergency grant support provided by the project, KWRC was able to purchase new material, open a store in the city center, and recruit new female employees.
KWRC was even able to hire 12 new female employees thanks to profit generated from sales and organize trainings to help more women gain the skills required to work in the garment manufacturing industry. Over 40 women took part in the trainings.
KWRC was founded in April 2009 through an initiative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and with the support of women activists in Kapan. Since its foundation, KWRC has implemented more than 30 projects aimed at fostering democracy and equal participation in the Syunik region (South of Armenia). To achieve these goals, the organization implements projects to empower women and ensure their equal participation in political, economic, and social life. When the funding from the OSCE stopped in 2015, the NGO developed textile manufacturing as its main means to promote women empowerment through social entrepreneurship.
“We have also interns involved in the manufacturing process, moreover, we relocated our apprentices to other employers in the sector. We have also many former employees who have launched their own businesses, working in different regions of Armenia, as well as in the capital Yerevan,” says Saghatelyan. KWRC uses mostly raw fabrics to sew its handmade clothes for women, men, and children. According to Saghatelyan, this is the reason why the products are becoming increasingly popular in the area.
“ArtIn Fashion” is the new store opened by the KWRC in the center of the town with the funds of the project
COVID-19: Civil Society Resilience and Sustainability is a 48-month regional project funded by the European Union and implemented by ERIM, the Black Sea Trust, Human Rights House Foundation, Human Rights House Tbilisi and Human Rights House Yerevan. The project is working to foster the resilience and sustainability of civil society and independent media in Eastern Partnership countries, enabling them to mitigate the impact of COVID-19.