Entrepreneurship School by SSP

You read about my romp in Katgaon earlier. Let us now talk about why was I walking amidst the bhindi plants.

So I was in the field to capture a woman talking about organic farming, which in turn, was a part of the field visit to record the progress of E-school program. The Entreprenuership School is run by Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP). This project is being supported by a corporate donor via Samhita. The visit was part of the reporting services provided by Samhita.

SSP has been working with rural women since many years. During their interactions, they saw that though women were able to get loans through micro-finance and cooperative societies etc., they are unable to run a business profitably because of lack of relevant information.
Their pre-conceived notions and lack of understanding of the market hinders them from starting a new business on their own despite the potential to do so. Also, they are unable to scale operations beyond what can be accomplished in a single household. On the basis of this experience, SSP decided to launch a training programme for rural entrepreneurship. For this purpose, MOVE curriculum developed by Dr. Subhas of Dharward, Karnataka was selected. 

The curriculum is very interactive with games and activities to engage the women. E.g. in one session, women are divided into groups and ask to make sample greeting cards. Each group then presents their product and is asked about whom they would sell it to, at what price, how much quantity they would make and how much variety can they create. Through these informal discussions, the women are able to grasp concepts like market research, quality control and pricing. The training is divided into 11 modules which range from Goal Setting to Development of a Business Plan. Each batch consists of 25-30 women. The classes are organized in villages in order to reduce commute for women. Also, since they can’t attend continuously for 10 days, the programme is spread over 3 months. Since Government departments often conduct free but ineffective training, women aren’t ready to pay for attending E-school. So what SSP did is that they now ask women to pay only when their venture is established.

Some of the other obstacles that E-School faced were: One, women associate training as a means to obtain loans or domain specific skills. Learning to do business is an abstract concept to them. Secondly, they are bewildered by the thought of going to school despite being an adult! A large part of SSP’s groundwork before E-School began was to create awareness to change the mindset of women. 

Till now, SSP has completed training for 2 pilot groups. For these, a counselling desk has also been established that will do hand-holding for their businesses for the next one year. Four more groups are undergoing training. SSP plans to extend the coverage to more villages after these 6 groups finish their training. 

Future of E-School:

Extension to more villages so that more and more women can benefit from the programme. Under Sakhi Social Enterprise Network, they have established a brand under which they sell the products. They want to develop this brand by adding more products and at the same time, giving customers quality assurance.

They are training role model women and resource persons in each cluster of villages. A cluster consists of 10-15 villages. These personnel will then be available to clarify doubts and help the trained women in running their businesses. So, in areas in which training has been conducted, the management of counselling and consultancy will be given over to rural women themselves, making this a sustainable model.