Business School for Rural Women in Maharashtra

Summary

The Business School provides technical skills to rural women without formal education and to girls forced to drop out of school, enabling them to start and/or improve their own micro enterprises. progress report read updates from the field

More Information About this Project

Project Needs and Beneficiaries

Many rural women in Maharashtra are either uneducated or are pulled from school at a young age. To address this situation, the Business School offers a variety of technical classes at our rural branch offices to enable women to start new businesses or expand existing ones. As such, the business school creates entrepreneurial opportunities for women, allowing them to enter the rural job market and strengthen economically-weak communities through micro and small enterprises.

Activities

We offer classes ranging from tailoring and embroidery to financial literacy and computer skills. Each course aims to enable the women to begin a new business or expand upon an existing one, allowing our students to gain financial independence.

Funding Information

This project has been retired and is no longer accepting donations.

Additional Documentation

This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).

Resources

Project's External Homepage (http://www.manndeshi.org)

Why this Project is Important

Potential Long Term Impact

Our School aims to improve the long-run economic status of women and their families through new business opportunities enhanced through entrepreneurial skills. We expect to graduate approximately 200 students in the School's 2nd year of operation.

Project Message

“All my life I have dug wells in the sun to earn my wages. For the first time in my life I am sitting in shelter and making cotton bags and selling them after taking the course in the business school.
- Shaila Mane, A student from the bag making course, Vaduj.

Who is Running This Project

Contact

Chetna Sinha,
President
Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank Ltd. Mhaswad
Tal. Mann Dist.- Satara
Mhaswad, Maharashtra Postal Code 415509
India
+91-02373-270660
Email:

Project Sponsor

Ashoka Innovators for the Public

Organisation

Mann Deshi Foundation
Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank Ltd. Mhaswad Tal. Mann Dist.- Satara
Mhaswad, Maharashtra 415509
India
+91-02373-270660
http://www.manndeshi.org

Learn more about Mann Deshi Foundation and the project team.

Where this Project is Located

Country

This project is located in India and can also be found under Education.

For more information about India, read the Human Development Report on India or the Wikipedia entry for India.

When this Project was Updated

Last Updated

This project was last updated on July 23, 2010.

Date Added to GlobalGiving

This project was added to the GlobalGiving project catalog on August 31, 2007.

Latest Update from the Field

Mann Deshi Business School update

By Chetna Sinha - President, December 14, 2009 04:45 PM

Dear Mann Deshi Friends and Supporters,

Thank you for your continued support of the Business School. The past few years have shown tremendous growth as we have opened three branches of business school and two branches of mobile business school.

Mann Deshi Business School’s mission is to provide poor rural women with business and financial training as well as the confidence and access to financial services that are necessary for them to become financially independent and self-sufficient.

Business School has enabled more than 6,000 women to set-up and scales their businesses in rural Maharashtra and Karnataka. Having sustained its operations over 3 years, business school has provided trainings to more than 12,000 women entrepreneurs.

In the next three years, business school aims at transition of the business school from mainly vocational training to becoming a general management training program which enables women to run their businesses more efficiently thus increasing their profitability. Your support has helped us to develop Micro-MBA program for non literate women.

We greatly appreciate all the support you have given us so far and hope that you will be able to help us in for our future projects.

Affectionately,

Chetna

Read 3 more "Updates from the Field" | Comment on this update

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