What comes to mind when we mention rural women entrepreneurs? Stories of resilience? Of overcoming extraordinary challenges? Sure. But what if we said that there are easier ways to become self-sufficient, resilient, and build a strong foundation that will not only stand in the face of adversity but also learn from it and become better? After all, can India truly claim to be the land of startups, when the same avenues and facilities are not necessarily available to rural entrepreneurs, especially rural women?
This is where the SwitchON Foundation comes into place. Instead of trying to change everything from scratch, the SwitchON Foundation works on making crucial, meaningful changes at a micro level. Over the last 15 years, SwitchON Foundation, registered as the Environment Conservation Society, has grown as a dynamic, award-winning not-for-profit working across Clean Air and Sustainable Cities and Energy, Water, and Agriculture Nexus. The Foundation, which is currently working across 10 states in India, has a rather simple vision: a sustainable and equitable India.
Sustainable and equitable: two words that may sound relatively simple, but only those who work on the ground know how difficult it is to implement them. This perhaps explains why SwitchON Foundation works in four phases: pilot, implementation, creating ecosystems and developing networks.
SwitchON Foundation, as part of Udyamini, comes under the coalition of partners to empower and strengthen Rural Women Entrepreneurs (RWEs) in West Bengal. The foundation aims to impact 2500 RWEs across agriculture and textile value chains, with 350 RWEs in service and business entrepreneurship ultimately setting up their enterprises towards the end of the four years. In the agriculture domain, the focus will be on Paddy and Horticulture in the Hanskhali, and Haringhata blocks of Nadia district, and Millets in Hura and Jhalda II blocks of Purulia district. For the agri and allied and silk handloom value chain, the focus is on two blocks namely Sonamukhi and Patrasayer respectively in the Bankura district, along with the Shantipur block of Nadia district.
One Survey, Several Crucial Lessons
In 2023, they completed their baseline survey in West Bengal, where it is working in allied and agro-industry. This baseline study focused on demographic details, economic status, business ecosystem, stakeholder engagement, financial and scheme-related support and the preparedness for rural women to uptake DRE-related technology/models.
“The baseline study was also an attempt to understand the readiness of rural women and their status for being able to walk on their entrepreneurial journey. The study was conducted with a total of 861 rural women and followed a mixed-method approach,” said a representative of the SwitchON Foundation.
The survey resulted in interesting findings. “The majority (75%) of surveyed women were below 45 years, with primarily educational attainment below 10th standard (62.72%). Agriculture emerged as the primary livelihood for 73.29%, forming a crucial income source where paddy, vegetables, and animal husbandry were dominant value chains, with evident challenges in accessing markets. Surprisingly, only 11.73% had a business plan, despite SHG associations. Additionally, 71.54% were not linked to livelihood-related schemes, highlighting a substantial gap in scheme linkages,” the study’s findings showed.
“(The) proximity to markets within 10 km for 77.46% offers potential for strengthening local market linkages,” the baseline findings showed, adding that challenges included lack of training (86.41%), awareness gaps (92.92%), and infrastructure deficiencies. “While 59% demonstrated awareness of environment-friendly technology, a notable gap existed while accessing the schemes and support from the government departments. Women’s leadership was found to be low, with household decisions primarily made by husbands. The study also showcased positive aspirations of the rural women, with 88.62% expressing interest in creating high-value products,” the survey added.
“The entire process of conducting this study provided various inputs to build our strategic interventions and enter into the committed phase of the Udyamini-RWEC program. Towards the end of the process, some of the rural women emerged as progressive, enthusiastic and showed a great amount of resilience towards embarking on their entrepreneurial journey. Such stories were documented to measure the change across the project implementation process in the next four years,” said a representative of the organisation.
The importance of the baseline survey lies in its findings because only when you truly understand the problem will you take the necessary steps to address it. Take for example the findings about the average annual income in the surveyed regions. “The data indicates that a large majority, 79.44%, of women’s family income is below 1 lakh annually…more than three-quarters, almost 80% of respondents, have a family income below 1 lakh. Furthermore, a clear trend emerges with 97% of families reporting an annual income below 3 lakh. Notably, no family’s income exceeds 8 lakh per annum,” the survey added.
Similarly, the data indicates that the majority of women (94.66%) are engaged in the production of raw materials within the value chain. “In contrast, a small percentage of women (8.71%) are involved in processing or value addition initiatives, with 4.65% participating in buying or selling inputs, 3.83% engaged in marketing or services, and 1.28% undertaking other initiatives. The findings underscore that a minimal number of women are involved in post-production initiatives within the value chain,” the survey said.
The survey showed that even though a significant majority of respondents (80.84%) rely on Agriculture as their primary livelihood source, diversification is evident, with 35.08% engaged in animal husbandry, 26.13% in local labour, and another 35.08% dependent on forest produce.
Additional livelihood options include Business (4.65%), Migrant Labor (1.86%), and Land Lease (10.10%). Notably, 12.66% of respondents are involved in handloom activities.
Worryingly, “the data further indicates that only a nominal percentage of respondents pursue government or private jobs, with 1.39% each involved in these occupations.” The role of Foundations like SwitchON becomes even more important in areas where government jobs, or access to governmentjobs, remains low at best. SwitchON’s aim, as always, remains on society’s most marginalised communities that are identified based on their annual income, as highlighted above.
And what about Self Help Groups (SHGs)?
The data reveals that a mere 12% of women, despite being part of Self-Help Groups (SHGs), have a business plan, indicating a limited engagement in constructive entrepreneurship initiatives. The majority of women, comprising 88.27%, lack a business plan, as highlighted in the findings.
“Further insights from Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) underscore that those with business plans primarily focus on Paddy, Floriculture & Horticulture, and Handloom, initiatives facilitated by the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) under which the SHGs are formed,” the survey added.
Untapped potential? Absolutely
It would be safe to say that the future plans will unfold intense and close engagement with the key stakeholders to inform them of the Udyamini program and receive formal letters/MOUs from the departments to initiate the Udyamini Program in a formal way.
“These stakeholders will include bankers, block personnel, PRI members, District & state authorities etc. We will simultaneously be building strategic interventions for the Udyamini Program. After receiving the required support, the required mobilization and campaigning across the villages in selected districts will enable us to formalize the women collectives and identify these women as Udyaminis. MOUs will be initiated with the identified centres/institutes/networks/platforms for further collaboration, exploring scheme linkages, especially with Anand-Dhara will be done,” the survey added.
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The Foundation also plans to build partnerships with accelerators, incubators and training bodies. “The state-level consortium of stakeholders in all the three districts will be organized. Process Documentation (including audio-visuals and case stories) will be carried out. Monitoring & Program Review/Mid-term and/or Impact Assessment will be a consistent process throughout the program implementation. Narrative building which has already started during the first phase of the program implementation will be continued during this phase to highlight certain stories of rural women and to measure it against the midline/endline,” the survey added.
The challenges for the Foundation remain plenty and only time will tell whether they overcome all the challenges. The buyer-seller meet that took place in Kolkata and Bankura allowed local women to showcase their works and connect directly with buyers to sell their produce. SwitchON Foundation also provided them support to both package and brand their products. For now, however, it is safe to say that they are on the right track.
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