Project with Care India

July-Nov 2022

AIWEFA in collaboration with CARE India completed a project on “Research, analysis, and recommendations for the promotion of women’s Entrepreneurship” in Madhya Pradesh region. The goal of the project was to Promote Entrepreneurship among women who have undergone “Personal Advancement and Career Enhancement (PACE) training for economic empowerment through research and analysis and providing recommendations thereon”. This pilot project was targeted towards the women who have undergone the PACE training undertaken by CARE India for life skills that include personal skills, decision making, critical thinking, problem solving, communication skills, time management etc. As a natural vertical to the PACE training, efforts are being made to explore the livelihood opportunities for these PACE trained women. The project ventured into seeking detailed research on the availability of crafts/ services/agro products in selected villages that could be taken up as potential enterprises. It further details the current livelihood situation, based on analysis of the potential entrepreneurial craft and service-based skill set of marginalised women from 30 villages of the Dhar and Indore districts of Madhya Pradesh.

Through this project, AIWEFA researched the local women living in the mentioned regions to understand their socio economic status, work style, culture, income, and consumption pattern and suggest ways of empowering these women and promoting entrepreneurship amongst them, supporting them in terms of building skills, proposing design ideas, and defining their purpose.

The project provided recommendations based on the research and detailed analysis instilled with the valuable recommendation for starting their ventures through network-based models working in Self Help Groups. The pilot project alliance focuses primarily on empowering the women living in the 30 villages of Indore and the Dhar region and creating business models of selected four enterprises that could be scaled up and replicated at other places.

The Programme was coordinated by Dr Mona Suri with guidance from Ms Asha Chandra and Ms Rita Menon. The Research Assistants were Ms Shivangi Devrani, Ms Jog Shree Pawar, Ms Anmol Yadav and Ms Samridhi Sharma and supported by Ms Asha Ahuja.