Expanding Employment Opportunities for Women in Low-Income Countries
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Samasource, a nonprofit that markets the skills of socially disadvantaged workers in low-income regions, recently partnered with oDesk to launch a group. One of our first members is a Pakistani woman named Maria, who hails from a Pushtun family in Peshawar, in the North-West Frontier Province currently occupied by the Taliban.
Maria holds a Master’s degree and was earning $120 a month as a high school teacher before she got pregnant with her second child. Her school’s policy for maternity leave was four weeks off without pay—that, coupled with her conservative family’s wish that she not work outside the home, led her to consider remote work. See complete interview of Maria:
Maria, a Samasource oDesk Group Member in Islamabad, Pakistan
She landed a content writing job on a local freelancer site, but pay was low. (While in her eighth month of pregnancy, Maria wrote 196 articles for $200.) Then, she stumbled upon oDesk and managed to make $400 in her first month of work. Her main challenge was building up her reputation, which required doing low-priced work to start.
Maria believes that the partnership with Samasource might make it easier for Pakistani women on oDesk to find work, since Samasource helps attract clients and train women to use the site: “I know many women from lower-middle class families that cannot spend time looking for opportunities that might not pay off. If they knew that finding clients would be a bit easier, they’d really like to earn some extra income while at home.”
Maria’s story illustrates how a partnership between Samasource and remote work sites like oDesk can create jobs for people in areas with very high unemployment and few opportunities.
Leila Chirayath Janah is the founder and CEO of SamaSource, a nonprofit that markets the skills of socially disadvantaged workers in low-income regions. SamaSource recently partnered with oDesk to launch the SamaSource group.
Maria
March 11th, 2009 at 4:48 am
OMG … “as many as $400″!!! I thought Hollywood biggies had it easy. Here I am fumbling for words in a 3 minutes video talking about myself … lol
Zain
March 12th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Fantastic ! keep it up Maria
shahid khan
March 28th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Hi Maria
keep it up sister and if anything we can do for you ..will be appreciated
its shahid khan from manchester uk …
cheers
Fahd Murtaza
May 7th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Way to Maria! Thats lovely. You are doing a great job. Its a great interview. I am gonna show it to my little sister. She is quite techy but wont work online. This is a great video. Very inspiring. Yeah I know teaching in Pakistan sucks. How do they expect quality education if they wont pay good to a teacher. Still our teachers are way better than teachers in any other country. We just need to realize that where we are going wrong. I started working on oDesk 2 and half months ago and within two weeks, I was in the top 4 providers in the monthly email magazine sent by oDesk.
Fahd Murtaza
May 7th, 2009 at 8:12 am
By the way,this guest blogger is spreading misinformation. I live in NWFP and its not occupied by Taliban. Go get a life, don’t spread misinformation.
Maria
May 7th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Thanks Fahd for your very encouraging comments. Definitely make your sis make use of her techy-skills.
As for Leila spreading misinformation, it’s just what everyone in the U.S. believes. Actually everyone thinks the whole of Pakistan is taken over by the talibans, God forbid. But to be fair, if you look at the way things are going these days (we alone have got 20 guests with us who have fled from Swat) I am afraid this is going to become the bitter reality we are all trying to ignore. Hope soooo much I am wrong.