Business School for Rural Women
Mann Deshi develops female day laborers and farmers into successful businesswomen through a business school for rural women, which provides technical and general business training. The business school is an effective solution that integrates rural women into the agricultural value chain.
Sobre ti
Sección 1: Sobre ti
Nombre
chetna
Apellido
sinha
Website
Country
India, MM
Sección 2: Sobre tu organización
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Nombre de la organización
Mann Deshi
Sitio web de la organización
Teléfono de la organización
Dirección de la organización
País de la organización
Tu organización es
OSC/ONG
How long has this organization been operating?
Menos de un año
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tu idea
Name Your Project
Business School for Rural Women
Describe Your Idea
Mann Deshi develops female day laborers and farmers into successful businesswomen through a business school for rural women, which provides technical and general business training. The business school is an effective solution that integrates rural women into the agricultural value chain.
Country your work focuses on
India, MM
Innovación
What makes your idea unique?
The business school consists of both stationary business school locations and a mobile business school that cater to women from backwards castes. A group that is often marginalized by society, female day laborers and farmers are often illiterate or semi-literate. The business school brings practical training and life skills to this rural population, allowing them to become a part of and benefit fully from the agricultural value chain.
To cater to a population that has received limited education, Mann Deshi has designed a unique curriculum using pictures and stories. Training includes financial, business, and marketing skills, as well as confidence building to put these newly developed skills into use. Mann Deshi’s dynamic approach to catering to poor rural women led to the establishment of a mobile business school. After successfully establishing a stationary business school, Mann Deshi learned that some women who wanted to take advantage of business training couldn’t because they were unable to travel due to financial, cultural, and geographical barriers. The mobile business school was born as an innovative response to this unmet demand.
Those who have enrolled are vastly different from typical “business” students elsewhere. Mann Deshi has worked with sheep and goat herders, tea sellers, daily wage laborers, and homemakers. Mann Deshi is especially committed to bring these women into the banking sector by providing financial literacy and vocational training in unconventional ways.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impacto
Esta presentación se trata de
Tell us about the social impact of your innovation. Please include both numbers and stories as evidence of this impact
The business school has trained 9,900 women in business development; sixty percent of the women who have been trained have subsequently set up and successfully run their own enterprises.
In terms of financial impact, the income of business school graduates has increased from INR 25-35 to INR 65-75 per day. The graduates’ stories are glowing testimonies to the quality and effectiveness of the business school and the practicability of sustainable economic impact.
In terms of social impact, the business school has contributed to creating an extremely well-informed segment of rural women who have emerged as community leaders of significant stature and respect. Government and banking regulatory authorities have recognized this movement as a model for bringing about measurable change.
Problem: Describe the primary problem(s) that your innovation is addressing
In India, it is a major challenge to develop micro-enterprises into small businesses; this is due to a variety of problems, including infrastructure difficiencies such as irregular power supply, the difficulties of scaling up businesses, etc. For example, Mann Deshi contacted local restaurants to which women could sell their home-made yogurt. The restaurants were happy to sell the yogurt, but they needed the product in bulk. Unfortunately, this has proven to be a difficulty since bulk production of yogurt requires refrigeration, which requires constant electricity – practically unheard of in rural villages.
As the first enterprise of its kind, the business school uses a trial-and-error method in designing courses and developing new programs. This is due to the fact that there are no similar models which Mann Deshi can follow.
Actions: Describe the steps that you are taking to make your innovation a success. What might prevent that success?
Mann Deshi is working extensively with its target demographic to gauge its needs and wants. As a program driven by rural woman, the business school is using its experience in prior years to focus on the most effective and beneficial courses and programs to achieve financial inclusion. Recent demand has led to the planning of additional business school branches. In order to maximize business training, the business school partners with the Mann Deshi Bank to offer students loans for micro-enterprises. This ensures that clients receive both the technical training and the financial support needed to make financial inclusion a reality.
Results: Describe the expected results of these actions over the next three years. Please address each year separately, if possible
Through expansion of the business school, the training of entrepreneurs, and the standardization of the business school branches, Mann Deshi plans to make financial inclusion a reality to over 30,000 women in 2010. Within five years, Mann Deshi expects that number to more than double to over 70,000 women. Empowering women to control family finances proves beneficial to their families; more money goes towards children, education, household expenses, and healthcare. These differently allocated expenses are an investment in India’s future. Additionally, new businesses stimulate local economies, ultimately contributing to the development not only of their villages but also India as a whole.
How many people will your project serve annually?
Más de 10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
Less than $50
Does your innovation seek to have an impact on public policy?
Sí
If your innovation seeks to impact public policy, how?
Approximately 150 words left (1200 characters).
Sustenibilidad
¿En qué fase está el proyecto?
Operando más de 5 años
Does your organization have a board of directors or an advisory board?
Sí
Does your organization have a non monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Sí
Does your organization have a non monetary partnerships with businesses?
Sí
Does your organization have a non monetary partnerships with government?
No
Please tell us more about how partnerships could be critical to the success of your innovation
Mann Deshi has a close partnership with Deutsche Bank’s Corporate Social Responsibility program. Under this partnership, Deutsche Bank sends volunteers to Mhaswad to work with previously discussed projects. This partnership is vital to Mann Deshi’s success as it provides the opportunity for Mann Deshi to gain the expertise of professionals who have been working in a slightly different sector of the financial industry.
This year, Mann Deshi will have the opportunity to host Deutsche Bank’s Managing Director. Mann Deshi will be leveraging her years of experience in the financial industry to benefit Mann Deshi Udyogini. Deutsche Bank’s Managing Director will bring Mann Deshi Udyogini’s locations under one conceptually similar umbrella and assist in standardizing its operations so that it will be able to grow more quickly and efficiently.
We would like to learn more about how your initiative is financially supported. Please explain your business plan/revenue model
Approximately 250 words left (2000 characters).
La historia
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
Jaibai is a successful entrepreneur and land owner. Married at eleven, she never completed her education yet understood early on that land ownership provided a secure investment. She therefore made it her goal to acquire as much land as she could. Her land ownership is the result of her diversified business strategy: growing vegetables and plants, selling vegetables, and working in the field and on construction sites. She plans her crops based on the fickleness of agricultural seasons.
Jaibai’s personal philosophy is that land investment is worth more than savings in a bank; she acknowledges that she would spend the interest she would earn on her savings. However, her land will not lose value and will also produce future income through agriculture. She points out that in emergencies, she can always mortgage her land.
Jaibai’s business acumen has been supplemented by knowledge she has received from the Business School Financial Literacy course after which she was able to establish a pension scheme, securing her financial future. Jaibai dreams of higher education for her granddaughters, something she couldn’t give her own children. In terms of financial growth, Jaibai’s income has increased from Rs. 2,000 per month to Rs. 10,000 per month. But her true return is her pride in her grandchildren as everything she does is for their educations and futures.
Tell us about the person—the social innovator—behind this idea.
Economist and activist Chetna Gala Sinha works for social change in the poor and drought-stricken areas of rural India. She founded and is currently president of Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank, a cooperative bank that provides savings, lending, pension, and insurance programs to low-income women.
Chetna also founded the Mann Deshi Foundation, an NGO that strives to enhance the economic empowerment of rural women through education, property rights, and social security initiatives. Most recently, Chetna started Mann Deshi Udyogini Business School for Rural Women. This micro-business school seeks to provide women with formal training in practical, income-generating areas.
Chetna was honored with the 2005 Jankidevi Bajaj Puraskar award for rural entrepreneurship. Recently, Mann Deshi Udyogini received worldwide attention when the Economist covered its activities in a “News from the schools” report.
Born in Gujarat and educated in Mumbai, India, Sinha was selected as an Ashoka Fellow in 1996 and a Yale World Fellow in 2002. Chetna was a leader in the Jayprakash Narayan student activist movement at the end of the 1970s, which fought for the democratic and basic human rights of the rural and marginalized communities during the Indira Gandhi Emergency. She was also actively involved in the landless labor movement carried out by the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Vahini in Bihar. Since 1996, she has been organizing women in rural areas of Maharashtra in the fight for their property rights.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Web Search (e.g., Google or Yahoo)
If through another source, please provide the information
ICRW
Does your project address any of the following barriers to women’s technology access and use?
Women’s time poverty, Social norms, Economic or institutional constraints, Women’s lack of involvement in the technology development process.
If you checked any of the boxes above, please explain how.
Approximately 250 words left (2000 characters).
Does your project involve women in one or more of the following stages of the technology lifecycle? Identification of the problem the technology will solve:
Technology introduction, Technology training.
If you checked any of the boxes above, please explain how you will ensure women’s involvement in each relevant phase of the technology lifecycle.
Approximately 250 words left (2000 characters).
If women are a focus of your project, how did this focus evolve?
The project focused on women from its conception..
Which type of women will your project reach directly?
Rural.
In what ways does your project team/leadership involve women?
It is led by a woman/women..
Has your organization formed any new partnerships in response to this challenge? If so, with what type/s of organization/s?
Has your project leadership had prior experience with the following?
Working with women, Working with technologies, Working to increase women's economic empowerment through technology, Working on innovation.
 | 111 weeks agochetna sinha submitted this idea. |