Co-creating a Resilient
Future through
Inclusive Entrepreneurship
Women
in our society wear multiple hats, playing roles of a mother, sister,
daughter or wife, among many others. Despite these multiple
responsibilities, they are devoid of decision-making power beyond their
households. This is reflected by the fact that 73.5% of women are
currently not working but would be interested in taking up career
opportunities1. These are the women who cannot disregard
their household duties and can only pursue opportunities that allow them
enough flexibility between paid and unpaid work.
Enabling women to understand and realise their potential paves the way
towards an empowered society, which has been the focus area of the DA’s
programmes. Over the last 40 years, DA has determined three major
approaches for including women: overcoming socio-cultural barriers,
building new models and catering to specific ambitions articulated by
women. Through DA’s social innovation processes adopted in initiatives
for inclusive entrepreneurship, over 900 women-owned enterprises have
been set up and supported in the last one year, leading to livelihood
generation for more than 2,500 individuals.
Defying the top-down approach of handing over solutions to women, there
has been a continuous focus on designing and co-creating women’s futures
with them, through programmes such as Work4Progress and HSBC-EE. Such
initiatives have not only given them the freedom to access their
choices, but have also built their capacities to transform their choices
and aspirations into entrepreneurial opportunities, thereby giving the
control of their lives back in their hands. Through this intervention,
DA envisions to create ‘change agents’ in the communities that inspire
many other women to take hold of their decisions and fulfil their
aspirations.
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Through these three goals, a ripple effect has been created in the
ecosystem, with many women entrepreneurs setting up non-traditional
enterprises and coming out as change agents for their community. Women
entrepreneurs such as Meera Devi, who runs an e-rickshaw, Kajal Parihar,
who opened the first women-led information kiosk in her village, Seema
Devi, who repairs electronic devices, and many more defy the
socio-cultural norms and exemplify that entrepreneurship has the
potential to transform aspirations into economic empowerment. One such
story of resilience and success is of Ruby, a business correspondent
(BC) Sakhi from Chirgaon, Jhansi.
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Way forward
In the current portfolio
of projects, DA will be working on the overall development of the three
pillars: the entrepreneur, the enterprise and the ecosystem. Our
approach will continue focussing on the power of collaborative action,
to co-create more solutions with the community, thereby empowering women
entrepreneurs with access to choices and capacities to create their
futures with their own hands.
Endnote:
Ankita Pant
apant@devalt.org
Muskan Chawla
mchawla@devalt.org
Supriya Shukla
sshukla1@devalt.org
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