Swades Foundation aims to lift 1 million people out of poverty permanently in the next 5 years and Women on Wings aims to create 1 million jobs for rural women. These great ambitions come together in a new partnership between the two. Women on Wings and Swades Foundation will 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.
Female entrepreneurs make a difference in their community
Mid-March, Naomi Bisschop, expert for Women on Wings, and Ronald van het Hof, MD of Women on Wings India, worked with a team of Swades Foundation to support them define their business models. To better understand the programs Swades Foundation is working on, they first went on a two days field visit. Naomi: “You can recognize entrepreneurial skills, and we have met those women. We visited entrepreneurial women in the starting phase with oyster mushrooms, poultry, cashews and stitching. An impressive experience! They can be role models for other women in their community.”
Creating long term sustainable businesses
Rajesh Jain, Director Livelihood at Swades Foundation: ”After the field visit, we had a 2 day workshop for the field staff where we worked on the understanding of value chains, SWOT analysis , ambitions and the steps ahead towards finalizing the business models. At least two of our business lines look promising for expanding into long term sustainable businesses. We appreciate the inputs given by Women on Wings and their value added approach which helped our team to look at work more from a business angle.
Unique holistic development model
Swades has a unique 360 degree, deep-intervention, inside-out model of development that focuses on holistic development covering all aspects of individual and community development through 5 verticals – Community Mobilization, Education, Agriculture & Livelihood, Health & Nutrition and Water & Sanitation.
