Association for Women’s Awareness and Rural Development (AWARD) has been assisting vulnerable groups of rural communities especially women and girls through appropriate skill development, micro-finance, enterprise development, awareness raising, non-formal education and relief and rehabilitation projects since 1994. Presently, AWARD is working in 6 districts namely Faisalabad, Toba Tek Singh, Muzaffargarh, Chiniot and Multan of Punjab Province and District Mansehra of Khyber Pakhtunkhaw Province. So far AWARD has operated in more than 180 villages and has implemented number of Development Projects successfully with the financial support of International and National Partners.

 

Micro-finance as one of its major tool, AWARD has provided a platform for rural communities especially the women to carry out their own small businesses effectively and efficiently. The feasible and associated interventions include Business Development Workshops, small business micro loans, business consultancy and developing linkages with the local markets are few of the services that AWARD provides to promote rural entrepreneurship among women.

 

So far, AWARD has provided business consultancy, small micro loans and small grants to more than 3000 women of rural areas for their economic uplift from 2003 to 2018 under its micro-finance program. Nearly 75 percent beneficiaries (from the above mentioned 3000 beneficiaries) have been managing their own livestock businesses with the support of AWARD while others have started other small businesses like grocery shops, cloth selling ,wood selling, snack shops, beauty parlous etc.

​

No Profit but Sustainability 

 

AWARD’s rural development philosophy is based on building strong community partnerships for community empowerment through livelihood opportunities. We do not believe in earning profits from the markups yet we focus more on the services to improve the lives. It is worth mentioning also that AWARD has developed a good practical and easy loan recovery mechanism due to which the recovery rate is between 95% to 98% for the last several years.

​