Shell Tameer assigns MOU with CARE International in Pakistan to empower women

The two year-long partnership between Shell Tameer and CARE Pakistan aims at creating economic opportunity through enterprise development among grass roots communities in Sindh and Punjab. At the signing ceremony, Omar Sheikh, Managing Director Shell Pakistan Limited said, “As Pakistan’s economic landscape develops, more opportunities are required to ensure the country grows steadily. By building trust and partnerships with organisations like CARE that have extensive experience in rural development, and adding our own enterprise generation experience to the mix, we hope to contribute to bridging the gap we see, particularly with young Pakistani women.”

Waleed Rauf, Country Director, CARE Pakistan emphasized how important working with the private sector is to ensure sustainable development. “We believe that leveraging institutions in the private sector like Shell can help us deliver our strategic goals better. We can provide the access and help built an active clientele for such corporations at the bottom of the pyramid.”

For women in Pakistan, rights such as education, employment and social mobility are not easily accessible, particularly in rural areas of the country. CARE International’s Community Infrastructure Improvement Project (CIIP) is a five-year, CIDA funded project that aims to elevate the socio-economic status of vulnerable rural women by improving their participation and contribution to village life.  

The Shell-CARE partnership aims to provide tangible solutions to alleviating poverty, empowering disadvantaged rural women and strengthening local Government institutions for sustainable development in Pakistan. It is a multi-phased project comprising awareness raising, rolling out customized workshops catered to potential entrepreneurs, and incubating selected new business ideas and start-ups through Shell’s Tameer Information Desk for Entrepreneurs programme. The project model aims at enabling women to gain confidence working outside their homes, begin to earn an income, generate start-up capital, and initiate entrepreneurial activities, with the hope that participants will emerge from the programme self-employed using the skills they acquired through the project. The project will not only benefit the women who participate, but also the Union Councils which are connected via the rural roadways built by these women. 

For queries:

Natasha Qamar, Shell Pakistan Limited natasha.qamar@shell.com, 0302-822-8946

Waleed Rauf, Country Director, CARE International in Pakistan, email: waleed.rauf@pk.care.org

Note to Editors

Shell Tameer: Since 2003, Shell Tameer has invested in developing entrepreneurial skills in young people across Pakistan aged 18 to 32 years. Through a number of programmes, Shell Tameer encourages young people to start their own business as a viable career option by providing free information, counselling, support and training. So far 75,000 thousand young people have been engaged by Shell Tameer through 112 workshops and 127 seminars nationwide. Shell Tameer’s efforts have resulted in 1000 new start-ups, providing employments to approximately 22,500 people. Recently Shell Tameer and Shell Lubricants have launched a number of enterprise workshops and trainings in rural Sindh and Punjab for communities whose livelihoods depend on agricultural activities.

CARE International: CARE, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Geneva, opened its offices in Pakistan in 2005 to address poverty at its roots, through partners by bolstering civil society, strengthening links between poor communities and local government, giving greater voice to Pakistan’s poor through advocacy and enhancing the quality of poverty reduction efforts. Globally, CARE places special emphasis on working with marginalized and vulnerable women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty. In Pakistan CARE aims to empower 28 million marginalized women in Pakistan to make choices that reduce vulnerability and impact their lives positively.