In a Developing country like India, having good quality education and deep expertise skills in any particular area (weaving, sewing, pottery, jewelry making, etc ) is of little value unless one can earn a livelihood using the education and the acquired skills which will eventually lead to the project of women empowerment in India.
In a developing country like India, the unemployment rate is alarmingly high. In some parts of India, it is more than 25% of the adult population which is eligible for working is unemployed. Some of this unemployed population is well educated and well skilled and yet they are unable to find employment or earn a livelihood through self-employment.
Unfortunately, these people do not have the required financial support to start their small business and even the ones that have borrowed money to start their own business are struggling to survive since they do not have a marketplace to sell their produce. These highly skilled artisans are shutting down the business due to losses incurred in the business and are looking for employment.
In the absence of being able to find work, they are resorting to illegal means of making money (to save themselves and their families from starving) or committing suicide (since they are unable to live a helpless life anymore.
Artisans in the rural regions produce some amazing goods. Unfortunately, they are forced to give up on their generations old trade because the are unable to find a marketplace for their produce and hence unable to earn a livelihood.
Skills Development in a developing country like India is as important if not more than academic education. Possessing Skills (Expertise) is the key to ensure that you are able to get employment or even self-employing yourself.
Our ‘Social Enterprise Program’ ensures the following:
- Opportunity to be self-employed
- Be Independent and Self Empowered
- Work in a Progressive Environment
- Gender Equality
- No Child Marriage
- No Exploitation
- Social Challenges
Our vision is to help create a market place for these goods in regions which are more financially secure (such as developed countries), where people would buy these goods/services knowing that this would help the needy.
Our vision is to setup a ‘Social Enterprise’ which will be a ‘Not-For-Profit’ part of Sneha Karma Foundation. The idea here is to self-fund this ‘Social Enterprise’ once it is setup and it should eventually be able to even fund some of our other programs.
Garbhanga Handloom Centre — Case Study
Our first social enterprise: a handloom and handicraft centre built in Guwahati, Assam.
Sneha Karma Foundations has strongly believed that just educating the under-privileged woman is not enough. In fact, we believe that it would be more harmful to educate someone of their rights and for them to then not have the opportunity to exercise them.
We also believe if you have missed the opportunity to get academically educated, you can still become independent and self-empowered. We believe that providing them the required skill training will provide the required foundation for them to then become more confident in their ability to become independent.
But again, just having skills is not going to make them independent and self-empowered. Financial security is an important element in their ability to become truly independent and feel that they are equal to others.
In a developing country like India, unfortunately it is not easy to find employment. It become even more difficult to find employment if you are under-privileged and are ‘academically uneducated’. To add to that if you are a woman, it make the task next-to-impossible.
This is where, Non-Profit organizations like Sneha Karma Foundation come in. We think we can not only provide the required ‘Skill Training’ to these under-privileged un-educated woman but also provide them the opportunity to earn their livelihood.
In October 2018, Sneha Karma Foundation decided to setup our first Social Enterprise, which will provide skill training and employment opportunity to under-privileged un-educated woman. We decided to build a ‘Handloom and Handicraft Centre’ in Guwahati, Assam.
It was decided that we will build a Centre, which will be 100 ft x 30 ft in Size. A Social Enterprise of this size can easily accommodate about 12 Handlooms and other required machinery to produce ‘Handloom’ products. When completely operational, This would directly employ more than 25 under-privileged woman as ‘Weavers’ and an equal number as ‘Trainee Weavers’. This setup would directly impact more than 100 people lives.
Thanks to some awesome work by our project co-ordinators ( Parijat Academy ) and their team of volunteers, we were able to complete the construction in a record six months and start the operations in March 2019. As of April 2019, The Centre has 4 handlooms and employs 5 un-educated skilled woman weavers and 5 girls as ‘Trainees’ (these teenage girls are the ones who missed the opportunity to go to school during their younger days).
The Plan is to first produce the products based on local market demands and by the end of 2019, start producing quality products which can be sold in the international market (such as USA) through our online ‘Social Enterprise Platform’ ( Sneha Karma Collections ).
We are expecting that Garbhanga Handloom and Handicraft Centre will not only pay for its own expenses starting June 2019 but by the end of 2019 be able to pay for all the girls in the girls from Garbhanga in our ‘Support-A-Girl’ program.
We are hoping that by June 2020, using the profits from this handloom centre we will be able to setup a ‘Handloom and Handicraft’ centre in ‘Garbhanga Forest Village’ itself. We think this will bring out a complete change in the ‘social behavior’ of the villagers of ‘Garbhanga Forest Village’ and their belief in Girls education and Self empowerment.
Support Us
We at Sneha Karma Foundation believe that what we are doing is transformational but we also believe that we are on a never ending journey. We also believe that every Human Being (including you) has a role to play in driving this transformation. We believe that this is not something that we can outsource to a ‘Government’ or ‘Private Companies’ , each one of us can help drive this change.
You can either help drive this change by donating your time or your money and we promise you, we will put it to the right use.
If you have about 5 hours per week of time to donate and have some of pro-bono skills – please contact us for any of the ‘Virtual Volunteering‘ opportunities
If you would rather like to support us by making a monetary donation, please donate generation Online or by Check
We are looking forward to changing the life of one under-privileged girl / woman at a time. In the days ahead, We plan to roll out our programs in many other program sites not only in India but even in other parts of the world. Come Join us!
ArtisansDirect by SKF — Case Study
Our online marketplace platform connecting under-privileged artisans to the world.
Our Vision
Our vision is to build an ecosystem that will enable under privileged artisans (especially woman) to get equal opportunity to pursue their dreams. We are committed to supporting the girls through academic education, skills training and professional development until they become independent and self-empowered.
Our Vision is to help artisans from all around the world (and not just India) to help sell their products online but we will start with India (since it is a known terrain for many of our volunteers) but if you from another country in the world ( especially Africa) and are help us get connected with some of the Artisans in that continent, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Also, our vision is not just to sell the products in India. Our Goal is to help artisans from around the world sell their products world-wide. Again, we are starting with Indian market but very soon we will be selling in the USA and UK markets. Australia and other countries of the world are also on our roadmap.
Even as a Non-Profit our vision is to become self-sustaining and self-reliant. We believe that once our programs are initially funded with help by Patrons like you, Our programs should become self-reliant and be able to fund its own needs. Our Social Enterprise Programs are setup such that they enable us to do just that.
Our Strategy
One of our three key program is ‘Social Enterprise’. One of the success metrics of our Social Enterprise program is to enable under-privileged artisans to earn their livelihood. Artisans today are struggling to find a marketplace where they can sell their products.
We believe an online platform will be the ideal place for them to showcase their talent and help them earn their livelihood. Our vision is to make ‘ArtisansDirect by Sneha Karma Foundation’ that platform.
We expect that by the end of 2024, We will have more than 5000 products on the platform that are created by more than 100 artisans across India.
Our Plan
Our Plan for 2024 is to launch the ‘ArtisansDirect by Sneha Karma Foundation’ E-Commerce Platform and learn from the experience of selling products online. The Store has been designed, built and managed by unpaid volunteers. The store will help us raise funds which will be used for the operations of the Sneha Karma Foundation. This will ensure that 100% of our patrons donations go towards helping the under-privileged. The experience gained by managing the store will help us sell the under-privileged artisans products online.
In Parallel, we will also be exploring launching ‘ArtisansDirect By Sneha Karma Foundation’ web stores on platforms such as ‘Amazon’, ‘Shopify’, ‘Etsy’ and others.
Program Update
Thanks to some amazing efforts of our team of volunteers, we now have the ‘ArtisansDirect (India) By Sneha Karma Foundation‘ platform ready to onboard products made by ‘Artisans’.
The Online store was designed, build and will be maintained by a team of unpaid volunteers (virtually) from all around the world. Interested in helping out, Please consider volunteering with us. We expect to continue to optimize the store and learn on the what it takes to own an online through through the end of 2024.
In Parallel, we have started partnering with other Non-Profit organizations who are helping under-privileged artisan. We will start adding their products to our online store in the times ahead.
Partner with Us
If you a Non-Profit organization located anywhere in the world, helping under-privileged artisans earn their livelihood and are looking for a e-commerce platform that can help you sell their products in the USA, please contact us . We will be offering free service to any non-profit organization, anywhere in the world for a small security deposit (fully refundable), so that we may protect the interest of our customers.
