Iran plans to facilitate income generation for breadwinner women providing them with small-scale solar power plants, Vice President for Women’s and Family Affairs, Masoumeh Ebtekar, said.
Ebtekar made the remarks during a meeting with the Dutch ambassador to Iran, Jacques Werner, on Wednesday, Mehr news agency reported.
The two officials discussed issues in the field of entrepreneur women, supporting women-headed families, and facilitating income generation for those who support their family solely.
“We are planning on launching campaigns to support entrepreneur women as well as supporting projects for breadwinner women employment,” she highlighted.
Ebtekar went on to say that “we decided to provide a number of small scale solar power plants across the country to be used by female headed households, as an alternative for earning monthly income through selling the generated power to the country’s grid.”
Werner further lauded the country’s plan for supporting the breadwinner women, and expressed readiness to exchange information and experiences in the field of energy generation and water resources management.
According to statistics released in 2017, there are around 2.5 million breadwinner women in the country, including 180,000 families, making up 500,000 people.
About 71 percent of breadwinner women have taken the responsibility of their families due to loss of their husbands.
Some 11 percent of breadwinning women are divorced, 10 percent are disabled or handicapped or have drug-addicted husbands, and about 5 percent of them are unmarried girls who are taking caring of their parents or their whole families.
Solar-powered photovoltaic panels convert the sun’s rays into electricity by exciting electrons in silicon cells using the photons of light from the sun, which is the cleanest, most reliable form of renewable energy, and can be used in several forms to help generate electricity along with income.
News of Vice Presidency for Women and Family Affairs