Scaling up from 100 female farmers to 4,000 may look ambitious but Women on Wings and Swades Foundation are determined working on realizing this growth by the end of this fiscal year.
Realistic growth plan for 4,000 new jobs
After a 3-days workshop, moderated by Women on Wings expert Naomi Bisschop last week, the team that consisted of 20 members (e.g. cluster managers and field workers) concluded that the plans and targets they had been working on, are challenging but realistic. The growth plan for two business lines of Swades Foundation include 2,500 extra jobs for female entrepreneurs in poultry and 1,500 in oyster mushroom cultivation.
Progress
Last March, Naomi Bisschop already worked with the team of Swades Foundation, e.g. on the understanding of value chains and the steps ahead towards finalizing the business models. Naomi: “I was very happy to see results of the first workshop. Working again with the same people really benefitted this workshop. Our efforts are towards setting up a formal structure for the workshops that shall be helpful to all. The team is aware of the coming changes and was very open to discuss responsibilities and ownership. They have a very cooperative culture in the team and this will surely contribute to realizing the targets.”
Generating input for improving operations
Rajesh Jain, Director Livelihood at Swades Foundation: “We took a lot of time to work on contingency of operation. Our pace of growth is ambitious. We worked on issues like procedures, organizing a feedback loop, getting better control of mobilizing and selection of potential entrepreneurs, mentoring and training of female entrepreneurs and making them successful. We took time for good discussions which enabled us to generate the input necessary to complete documents, schemes and procedures.”
Unique holistic development model
Swades Foundation has a unique 360 degree holistic model for individual and community development. Women on Wings and Swades Foundation collaborate on increasing the number of jobs and livelihood opportunities for women in rural India in the 6 blocks in Maharashtra where Swades Foundation is working.
