Microfinance Project Manager - Eco Himalayan Homestay Tourism Development

MicroEmpowerED is an affiliate program of EduCARE India, a registered NGO in India. EduCARE India is an applied research and rural development organization that started in 1994 in rural Punjab, India. EduCARE India has several affiliate programs that specialize in different fields such as education, empowerment, environmental conservation, microfinance/ micro-empowerment and health. These programs and projects often overlap and some interns work under several program areas.

Our integrated micro-finance project offers a holistic strategy to help address the issues of financial disadvantage amongst marginalised people and indigenous groups. Broader than merely a financial or banking model, our micro-finance project seeks to empower individuals by providing them with life skills, training and education alongside small financial loans. In micro-finance projects, we do not solely lend money as in banking solutions. We do financial literacy, promote savings and invest money in a community in small ways. We help them to get into an income generating activity while at the same time doing educational activities with the children and young girls, health-care awareness and support, sanitation etc. Our project is based on long term relationships and trust that seeks to empower individuals and communities to improve their economic livelihoods and sustainability. We do this in an integrated and holistic way that seeks to address the many issues that contribute to their overall disadvantaged position within society. This job role involves assessing the broader needs of the individual or community and working towards improving their life skills, education and empowerment.

The Home Stays project is an eco-friendly microfinance project developed by the NGO, EduCARE India, and its affiliate programs MicroempowerED and ConservEN. The aim is to receive tourists for the touristic season in the home of a small village community called Naddi, based in the foothills of the Himalyan mountains. This idea was born when working with Young Women Association (YWA), an association of women in the Shennai community of Naddi - that we are trying to empower. We realized that they have all extra rooms which they don't use and by which they could try to make earnings. We are focusing on more specifically on eight target members of the YWA and their families on this project.

The young women and their families will be involved in this project by hosting tourists and participating in local cultural activities with them, such as cooking, knitting, Gaddi dance, trekking, experiencing rural & communal living. This project aims to promote a global perspective while being rooted in the values and customs of the local culture.

Currently EduCARE India and the Naddi YWA are working hand in hand to try to realize this project on a rolling basis, ideally with the first step beginning June 1st, 2013, start of the touristic season in the Himalayas. We are a very motivated team composed of several interns which come from different Western countries. We share our experiences, ideas and philanthropy to make this project possible and to help the community.

It is a microfinance project because through small loans and financial skills we help the community to improve the state of their room and to organise, develop and advertise the project on a larger scale. Also we hold workshops with the female participants on a weekly basis on topics like housekeeping, cultural sensitivity or English lessons, so that they can be fully ready to receive tourists and to interact with them.

Additionally, the Homestays project is an eco-friendly project because the community is located on a small verdant hillside in the Himalayan Mountains. The community lives in harmony with nature and tries to get the maximum out of it by respecting it at the same time. There are plenty of animals like horses, goats or cows. It is an opportunity for the tourists to experience rural Indian lifestyle in interaction with the local culture and tradition and in a peaceful and quiet environment such as the Himalayan Mountains.

We need interns who are university and/or graduate students or newly graduates to be involved on this project. We would like to bring the project into the next level of implementation, and futher develop the rooms, begin the next stages of the business plan, and intiate a new marketing campaign. Moreover, we need people who are interested in pursuing sustainable development and incorporating environmentaly friendly initatives into the Homestays, making them into "green homes" and thus eco-friendly. As a project manager we would like individuals who are self-motivated, driven, positive, flexible, and patient in the face of the every-day contraints of living and working in rural India.