Women’s Livelihoods & Social Enterprise Field Internship - Himalayan India

This internship is for students interested in women’s empowerment, rural livelihoods, self-help groups, social entrepreneurship, micro-enterprise development, community institutions, and inclusive local economies.

Interns will support initiatives that explore how women’s groups, youth entrepreneurs, community volunteers, and local institutions can develop sustainable livelihood models linked to care services, environmental action, disaster preparedness, local products, training services, and village-level enterprise systems.

This track is especially relevant for students who want to understand how grassroots entrepreneurship can be connected with dignity, skills, income generation, community service, and local resilience.

Possible Assignments

Interns may contribute to:

• SHG-based livelihood and enterprise mapping
• Market assessment for community-based products and services
• Business model development for care, safety, environment, and local services
• Documentation of women-led social enterprise opportunities
• Training material for SHGs and community entrepreneurs
• Field interviews with women, youth, volunteers, and local institutions
• Case studies on livelihood, leadership, and local enterprise models

Best Suited For

Students of rural management, social entrepreneurship, gender studies, development studies, business, social work, public policy, economics, or sustainability.

Learning Outcomes

Interns will gain practical exposure to grassroots enterprise development, SHG ecosystems, women’s leadership, rural markets, and social business models designed for community impact.

EduCARE India a registered NGO (1430/2006-05) located in North West India. It was initially formed as a volunteer charitable initiative for marginalized village community groups in 1994 but has through the years transformed itself as a youth and women driven self-sustainable organisation with seva (social entrepreneurship and volunteer action) principles and does not receive any external funding aid or charity contributions.

It has now several following affiliate programs that focus in different fields of work such as education, empowerment, environmental conservation, microfinance/ micro-empowerment and health. These programs and projects often overlap and some interns work under several programs focusing on an integrated sustainable development and community care in rural areas.

• MicroEmpowerED – microfinance and marginalised community development
• Rural Health Care India – health care for rural areas and urban slums
• ConservEN – Environmental conservation and sustainable development
• InfACE Learning – Informal, Alternative and Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning
• Young Women’s IDEA – Women’s Empowerment

All of our projects and programs are run through our ViKAS DEVI facilities. VIKAS in Hindi/Punjabi

means development; and DEVI means goddess or the giver; and, we have created this dual acronym to mean Village Knowledge, Awareness and Sustainable Development Institute. In the future, we hope that these facilities can be run directly by the village communities that we work in, as a platform to help them address some of the social, environmental, educational, and health issues they face in their own communities.

The International Internship Program of EduCARE India is designed to provide selected applicants to contribute in one or several of these critical work areas in various developmental projects in along with a rewarding educational, learning and grass-root level work experience.

While working closely together with other international interns and local team-members and,

volunteers, EduCARE India interns acquire knowledge and skills in specific areas, work on critical assignments and projects, receive exposure to various professional areas and gain first-hand experience working in a non-profit grass-root level community development and social work in India.

Interns will receive:

• Real-world cross-cultural international work experience
• Exposure to Indian culture and living in a developing country
• Grass-root level development work experience and experiential learning
• Course credit (when required)
• Future academic / professional work references