Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme has been started at Snehitha Gender Help Desk of Thrissur. The programme is launched in convergence with Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), an autonomous and non-profit institute for entrepreneurship development. Women entrepreneurship development programme for Snehitha beneficiaries is a course of 6-8 weeks duration based on the essentials of conceiving, planning, initiating and launching an economic activity or an enterprise successfully.
The content of the Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme include class room training on essentials of entrepreneurship, survey of the prevalent socio - economic scenario, identification of business opportunities, role and function as well as schemes of assistance offered by various constituents of the support system, preparation of a technically feasible and economically viable project report, achievement Motivation Training and also the nuances of management of an enterprise, sessions on technology and finance are also arranged, depending upon the nature of project selected and field visits- different micro enterprises run by women entrepreneurs.
From the case analysis report of Snehitha gender help desk, Thrissur during 2017-18 it was identified that about 69% of the women were unemployed and having educational status of above matriculation. In most of the domestic violence cases it is the lack of income for women that makes the situation worse. In some cases the women are not even willing to go for legal action due to the fear of losing the maintenance of children from husband. In order to overcome the situation, Snehitha Gender Help Desk of Thrissur took an initiative to start a women entrepreneurship development Programme with an objective of 'Making women financially literate and equip them to start a micro enterprise according to their area of interest.
The course was started on 19 December 2018. Twenty five beneficiaries of Snehitha are benefited out of the programme. The selection was on the basis of a need assessment report of the registered cases in Snehitha Gender Help Desk. From the need assessment report, 32 women having interest to start an entrepreneurship were identified. An interview was conducted and 25 candidates were selected for the course having graduation and a base in the field of science and technology. The sessions were handled by experts from business and banking field. The participants were actively involved in the discussions and shared their experiences. After the successful completion of the course all the candidates got a certificate which would be useful for them to get Mudra loan, loan from employment exchange, Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) Loan etc to start an entrepreneurship. The course was completed on 24 January 2019.
The programme was highly beneficial for the participants it helped them to improve their self-confidence and feeling of become self-reliant. Presently the participants were planning to start a new micro enterprise like Photostat and printing press, women’s ware with tailoring unit etc. individually or as a team from the Experience and encouragement of this training programme. As the first season of the Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme was a success, it is planned to start the next batch immediately as possible.
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