Empowering women, girls through social entrepreneurship

With the ultimate goal of capacitating CSOs and empowering women and girls through social entrepreneurship, the Girl Power Project geared towards the new year of 2021 and saw significant development in terms of the increased team size with four new members onboarding the project at different domains of the project management, marketing, CSO outreach and stakeholder management.

Network Building with 100 CSOs is the first and foremost step for moving towards reaching out to the project beneficiaries in different parts of the state. The project onboarded 20 CSOs that have worked on various projects of the government with a considerable number of women self- help groups (SHGs) across sectors. These CSOs will act as a support mechanism base for fostering rights and support to women and girls in Jharkhand.
It is imperative for the project to enable and empower 5000 women and girls to become entrepreneurs and establish their business in the social sector. A baseline survey of 3300 women has been completed through a software KoBo ToolBox on various parameters such as demographic profile, asset holding, educational background, primary occupation, entrepreneurship potential and skill building requirements. The baseline survey has covered the identified 10 districts covering four regions of North Chotanagpur, South Chotanagpur, Kolhan and Santhal Pargana division of Jharkhand with 20 blocks, each with a target of reaching out to at least 250 potential beneficiaries.
The Women Network for Social Entrepreneurship- Jharkhand has been established to promote multi stakeholder participation in Jharkhand and to identify like-minded people in the sector that can support the project. Vasavi Kiro, a tribal social entrepreneur and founder of Torang Trust who has been identified for WNSE-J, is a source of inspiration to the thousands of women and girl beneficiaries across
the state.

A knowledge sharing stage in the form of Best Practice forum has been created that not only shares best practices but also promotes diversity on various topics related to gender empowerment, skill building and social entrepreneurship promotion through various national and international speakers across sectors. Dr Vibha Gupta, Director of Magan Sangrahalaya Samiti (MSS), a non-government organisation committed to the empowerment of women in rural communities of Wardha district of Maharashtra, shared her experience and knowledge on various social enterprises that have emerged in the country and the several marketing trends that have changed in the past few years. She pointed to the large untapped market in terms of forest produce of Jharkhand and how with value addition it will benefit a large number of producers.
Market Connect, with the objective of providing a market platform to potential women entrepreneurs for their business growth and expansion is an element that would ultimately bring forth products and services of women entrepreneurs that the project will be working with. The initial step of identification of the potential products that can be value added and processed for ready market sale has highlighted various products across the intervention districts. Potential products include organic vegetable, lac (a natural resin), livestock and backyard poultry, mushroom and handicrafts. Value addition and processing of these products will create a network with market players and a scope of potential export to other states of the country. Through the survey, it was also found that girls were interested in learning skills of tailoring, embroidery, candle making, handicrafts and incense sticks making. Gender focused curriculum development for capacity building through training of 20 CSOs on soft skills and social entrepreneurship has been developed. Keeping in view the broader objective of skill building of women and girls to create social enterprises and develop innovative products and services promoting a growing marketplace in the longer run, modules have been designed in three levels divided into two parts. The first part of the training will consist of topics on soft skill, social entrepreneurship and a technical training on the identified potential product specific to each area. The second part of training will entirely be based on marketing and sales, skill building & government schemes and organization development & management. The unique curriculum designed for skill building of women and girls will meet the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) levels.

Liasoning with government departments and agencies for the purpose of training and pro bono support was requested from the Rural Development department, Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India, Women and Child Development department, PRADAN, Ramakrishna Mission Ashram and Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra. The team contacted Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society and various other organisations that are already promoting rural entrepreneurship for identification of marketable products in the identified districts along with trainers and modules for technical training on potential products to the CSOs. Sensitisation of government officials through outreach meetings by the core team and CSOs was carried with the district and block level officials. The meetings intended to sensitise officials on objectives of the project along with domestic and societal issues of women and how the project addresses such issues creating a large impact on the lives of women
and girls.
The project aims to conduct a series of trainings for 20 CSOs in the upcoming quarter on various aspects skill and capacity building. They will further train 80 CSOs/ SHGs/women led groups, benefitting the larger 5000 women and girls engaged in
the purpose.
The Girl Power project proposes to use a combination of training, skill building, network formation, policy dialogue and entrepreneurial support to achieve the larger goal of strengthening the ability of Indian civil society and its organisation to perform their role as independent agents of change, implementing actions that bring transformative change in the lives of women and girls.
Through a cascade model and networks, the project aims to benefit at least 30,000 women and girls in the state and build a vibrant network of CSOs and women and girls, trained in entrepreneurial skills and actively practising entrepreneurship in various domains of social enterprise.