NASSCOM Foundation and Firstsource come together to provide digital training for rural women entrepreneurs in Madhya Pradesh

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Indore : To strengthen the livelihood opportunities of women artisans and re-build recognition of their excellent craftsmanship, NASSCOM Foundation and Firstsource, a global provider of Business Process Management (BPM) services and an RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group company, came together to successfully train 150 women artisans from the Bagh community in Madhya Pradesh, as part of the first cohort of the project. The objective was to leveraging technology to enhance the economic and social opportunities for rural women artisans (with a special focus on tribal women) by training them on digital, financial and entrepreneurship skills. The second cohort of the project to digitally enable women artisans will begin next year.

The project implemented by grassroot partner Umang Shridhar Designs, has tremendously uplifted the women entrepreneurs in tribal districts of Madhya Pradesh, through a year-long digital skilling and training program, with the aim of empowering them and building their digital capacities. This has gradually encouraged the market’s demand for Bagh printed products and the growth of the production base for mass-produced, utility-based and lifestyle goods.

Nidhi Bhasin, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation said “We firmly believe that when you empower a woman, you empower the entire community. One of the main indicators for attaining SDGs is by ensuring women have access to technology. With that belief, we have encouraged women from marginalized communities to leverage technology to scale businesses and bridge the socio-economic divide. Their uptake of digital skills and its impact on their entrepreneurial dreams has been phenomenal. Our collaboration with Firstsource has been truly instrumental in transforming small-scale rural artisans into entrepreneurs. This program helped them expand their customer base through digital marketing, financial management and branding.”

Sawlia Mansuri, a woman artisan based in Bagh said, “I have been using social media such as Facebook and Instagram for a while now 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, usage of appropriate hashtags and making the best use of social media channels to market our products and expand our business. We want to make the best use of our learnings through the digital learning program to showcase our collections and promote our work on a broader scale.”

More than 50 percent of artisans in India are women from marginalized groups, most of whom are working in an informal and home-based setting. Based mostly in rural areas of India, women artisans have limited market intelligence, inadequate channels to sell their products, in addition to low capital and limited digital access. Additionally, small-scale entrepreneurs and collective enterprises, have also felt the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, hampering their growth paradigm. However, through this digital intervention, the beneficiaries have been able to successfully adopt online transactions, use digital media tools such as WhatsApp, Pinterest and Instagram to establish critical customer relationships and identify meaningful demand opportunities via brand collaborations and enhance their income and develop a sustainable livelihood for themselves.