Livelihood support for COVID-19 pandemic affected low-income communities through solar energy Interventions

Under this project, SNV works with energy nexus women lead productive use of energy interventions to ensure the food security and livelihood improvement of COVID 19 pandemic affected Low-income communities. This project will run from 1 January 2021 to 30 October 2021.

According to a Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) survey, about 13 percent of people have become unemployed in the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic. They are primarily skilled adolescent/women garments workers, domestic helpers, food vendors, retailers, service staff, and they are living a miserable life during this situation. Aiming to support these vulnerable groups, the project will help set up low-cost grid-tied SHS for powering small local RMG & tailoring houses & community-based egg hatching businesses. Skilled garments dropout adolescent girls/women will lead the small RMG & tailoring houses. The small RMG & tailoring houses will also provide hands-on tailoring training to the local unskilled adolescent girls and women.

The project will also support creating local women entrepreneurs to start a community-based egg hatching business. The egg hatching entrepreneurs will be provided with automated egg incubators that will accelerate local home-based poultry farming to commercial scale, reduce energy cost, increase renewable energy contribution, and women can contribute more to their family income.

The main objectives of this project are:

• Support dropout skilled women/adolescent RMG workers.

• Improve the livelihood and create women & local-based youth employment opportunities.

• Increase the income of COVID-19 affected families.

• Ensure decentralised urban employment opportunities and help to prevent local people from again returning to overcrowded cities.

• Create a household-based energy hub & increase renewable energy contribution in the national energy mix.