The Jilin Women's Federation, in the city of Changchun, in Jilin province has received the State Council's "Advanced Work Unit" award for its work of establishing "Three Women" training program, Xinhua reported on August 23.  

The program is designed to find more ways to help unemployed women learn skills and knowledge for starting their own business with three training programs - "Jilin Housekeeping Women", "Jilin Skilled Women" and "Jilin Internet Women" - for training with housework, handcrafts, and starting an internet business in Jilin province.

Jilin women learn housekeeping in a "Jilin Housekeeping Women" training program on August 22. [Photo by Zhang Nan/Xinhua]

Jilin women learn tea art on a "Jilin Skilled Women" training course on August 23. [Photo by Zhang Nan/Xinhua]

A woman takes an e-commerce course on shop online decoration in a "Jilin Internet Women" program on August 23. [Photo by Zhang Nan/Xinhua]

The "Housekeeping Women" part focuses on teaching women skills of housework thus they can find a housekeeping job across the province or even elsewhere in China. This program helps meet the massive demands household laborers today, an area where Jilin women have advantages such as good mandarin, cooking skills and their honesty.

On example is Chen Yuebo, in her 30s, who used to be a nurse but, these days, after joining the Housekeeping System, has been able to combine her nursing skills with housekeeping, something that is greatly appreciated by customers.

As for the handcraft training it requires little investment and has little risk, and is environmentally friendly as well, hence the Skilled Women, which can teach women handcraft skills and knowledge for starting a related business, and by getting more women to acquire the skills, the program goes a long way toward saving China's endangered folk arts.

Now several departments in the province have built an entrepreneurship incubator base to help the women turn their work into a business by giving them work sites and office equipment, as well as professional policy and marketing consultation, so, in the words of the general manager of a grass weaving company in the city of Yushu, Li Xiulan, "The base gives me a free hall for exhibiting and selling my goods, and I'm so grateful for this."

Thanks to the program, the province has more than 100 "Jilin Skilled Women" bases, helping thousands of women realize their business dream.

The "Internet Women" part was developed in relation to the e-commerce age. Since e-commerce businesses require little investment and have little risk, the Women's Federation decided to help women start their business in this field, and one woman who has already benefitted from it, Liu Hongyan, comments, "The training lasts only seven days, but it's a lot of help".

Till now, the program has helped about 670,000 Jilin women get their jobs.

Li Xiaojie, head of Jilin Women's Federation, says that later they will find a way to get the three branches to work together to realize housekeeping services booking and handcraft trading online.