Women’s Entrepreneurship Day 2022: Making Rural Women Self-Reliant

Women Artisan Entrepreneurship, Financial and Digital Skilling Project under the aegis of Nasscom Foundation supported by Firstsource aims to upskill existing rural based women artisans, particularly from the Bagh community from Madhya Pradesh, to help them with digital transactions to increase income, leverage social media platforms, access to market linkages to showcase their designs, expand customer base and utilise government based schemes to expand their business.

Anita, a rural woman artisan who enrolled for the training program to learn new ways to design clothes and build end-to–end products in the merchandise business. She wants to further establish her business by honing her digital and entrepreneurial skills. “I have learnt how to protect ourselves from online frauds. Apart from this, I have also been educated on processing online payments. The training has helped me understand the various aspects of the PM Mudra Loan including methods for applying for it and using it effectively. Online platforms such as Pinterest have enabled me to learn new designs to stitch blouses, designer kurtas and bags. We have also been trained on running quality checks and end-to-end packaging of a finished product. I want to learn how to craft new and impressive designs for clothes for which I would like to run my own enterprise. Furthermore, I will also strive to establish my business across online and e-commerce platforms.”

On the other hand, the program has helped Swaleha and her sister, Saima to learn digital forms to establish their business. The sisters are passionate about designing new patterns with a burning enterprising streak. “We used social media such as Facebook and Instagram but couldn’t use it efficiently. However, during the training, we learnt how to make interesting reels on Instagram, go live on Facebook, create YouTube shorts, post informative videos about our line of products with complete details, use appropriate hashtags and make the best use of social media channels to showcase our products and expand our business. We would like to make use of our learnings to showcase our collections and promote our work on a larger scale.”

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