Empowering rural communities through livelihood creation, access to savings and credit, teaching digital and financial literacy has proven to be a successful model. This enables the community to contribute towards economic growth of the nation.
Pushpa hails from Nandwan village of Jodhpur district, Rajasthan. She was divorced by her husband at a young age and she started her dairy business with credit support from Hand in Hand India (HIHI) in 2017. Very soon, she repaid her loan and started a training school to teach local women the art of making khichiya papadas, a popular Indian snack served as an accompaniment with Indian meals.
Later, Pushpa took an additional credit support from HIHI to purchase a machine to make the same on a larger scale. She now earns more than Rs 20,000 per month. Having benefited from digital literacy trainings and with the profit from her business, she purchased a smartphone and learnt the use of different digital platforms to enhance her business. Pushpa is now confident and feels determined to ensure a better future for her two daughters.
HIHIs job creation and credit support approach, combines enterprise formation and integrated community development. Over the last 20 years, it has grown into a massive programme reaching 6.4 million vulnerable women in India and benefitting another 20 million of their family members. Around 2.3 lakh self-help groups with 23 lakh women have been supported by HIHI.
HIHI in its experience has observed that women in SHGs learn to experience the outside world, gain confidence and then move forward to take up leadership roles. Their brush with entrepreneurship, empowers them to confront existing stereotypes and change norms. HIHI follows an unique model that promotes rural livelihoods. The four major steps are:
Social Mobilisation
Women are brought together for promoting collective strength, social capital and empowerment. They are provided training in financial and digital literacy, skill development in business and marketing and information on how best to leverage government schemes to further their entrepreneurial dreams.
Skill Training and Credit Access
Women are developed holistically. This encourages them to set up their own businesses either at home or as a group. An integral missing link in promoting entrepreneurship is securing higher amount of credit from a reliable source. This gap is filled by HIHIs NBFC entity, Belstar Microfinance, a subsidiary of Muthoot Finance Ltd. Belstar’s business model is unique as it pursues a double bottom line focusing on both financial performance as well as social performance. A unique credit plus service offers training and skilling in business related knowledge.
Access to Government Schemes
There are several possible avenues for credit and one such is ensuring access to the available government schemes. Over the last three years, Belstar Credit Plus has reached out to cumulatively 186,240 women clients through the Prime Ministers’ health and life insurance schemes, pension schemes and cattle insurance schemes. These provide a safety net and also help meet some of the UN SDGs.
Business Coaching For Graduated Entrepreneurs
To support graduation of entrepreneurship for rural women from ‘micro to macro,’ HIHI has partnered with IIT, Madras, to train and mentor women entrepreneurs in business management principles, marketing, technology, accounts and finance. Additionally, mentoring support is provided for over 6 months to help women entrepreneurs prepare business proposals and access credit and market linkages for upscaling their enterprises.
