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As an August 2010 Indicorps Fellow, you will develop a program to encourage women to take up entrepreneurial activities.
The first step will be to identify women ready to take up entrepreneurship activities. This will require you to spend time in the community and build relationships. You might want to attend SHG meetings and understand the women’s existing activities. What is their daily schedule? How much time do they have to take up entrepreneurial activities? What types of activities interest them?
Understanding the dynamics of the community will be critical. Home visits, attending community meetings, and informal dialogue will help you understand the women’s appetite for risk, the market segment, and other factors relevant to starting a new business. The enhanced understanding will enable formulation of an appropriate training program and enlisting feasible local entrepreneurial options.
As the next step, you might want to identify potential markets in and around the community. What is the demand in these markets? Which of these demands are best suited for women? You might want to visit other areas where women have taken up entrepreneurial activities to understand the markets there. All these questions will help you understand the nature of training and inputs required by the women to start micro-enterprises.
Once you have a strong understanding, you can arrange and facilitate relevant training programs. Your trainings should cover aspects of motivation, organization, finance and accounting and marketing. You might also suggest relevant financial interventions to the organization depending on the credit requirements of the women for setting up micro-enterprises.
Finally, you may create a pilot program with a select group of women. You should assist these women in starting and managing their micro-enterprises. Throughout this process, you should take careful notes and keep a track of what changes to make in subsequent programs. As a measure of sustainability, you should share these learnings and observations with other members in the organization who will take the process further on your departure.
Target Community:
The main target group consists of rural women in the Sangamner block of Ahmednagar. You will be focusing on a cluster of 10 villages. Most of these women are between the ages of 18 and 45, and are members of existing SHGs. The main source of livelihood is agriculture. Most of the women are illiterate, and juggle their time between household and agricultural responsibilities.
Objectives:
• To encourage women to take up entrepreneurial activities and start their own micro-enterprises
• To support interested women to start and run their micro-enterprises
• To create market linkages for these micro-enterprises
Challenges:
• Convincing communities alien to business opportunities to take the entrepreneurial route
• Convincing the community of the benefits of entrepreneurial activities
• Providing training, know-how, and capital for new ventures
Team-Based Model:
Each project is designed as a three-way partnership between you, Indicorps, and a partner organization. Each grassroots partner organization – in this case WOTR – will be hosting two to four Fellows. Consequently, the August 2010 Fellowship will have both an individual and a team component.
As a team of Indicorps Fellows, your focus is to empower communities to take charge of their own progress and development. Team members will focus on different areas including: enhancing local livelihood opportunities for youth, raising awareness about renewable energy and encouraging gender balanced development.
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