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Shri. Mohammed Yunus,  the Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of micro credit and micro finance interacted with the staff of Kudumbashree Mission at a programme held at Secretariat on 26 June 2018.

He had a detailed conversation with the Kudumbashree Misson staff on social business. He described in detail about the evolution of Grameen bank and how he turned the unemployed youth into successful entrepreneurs through micro credit and micro finance. He said that the real solution is to let young people express their creative capacity. Nowadays the Business Schools are training  their scholars to achieve interest only; it should be changed and they should be trained in a balanced system which consists of social entrepreneurship as well as profit motive. Organisations like Kudumbashree Mission have relevance in this scenario.Then only we can completely eradicate unemployment. We had created more job creators than job seekers. Muhammad Yunus said.

The selfishness and selflessness of the younger generation should be abolished. In today's world bankers are always working for rich people. Micro credits entered into the scenario like a 'Bonsai' which have all the features of a giant tree. He added. He also described the relevance of communicating equality, social responsibility and social entrepreneurship  among the society. He also appreciated the Micro Enterprises Programme and Animal Birth Control Programme of Kudumbashree Mission.

Shri. T. K. Jose IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Local Self Government Department,Government of Kerala welcomed and introduced the Nobel Laureate to the gathering. Shri. Harikishore IAS, Executive Director, Kudumbashree Mission, Shri Binu Francis, Shri. Dathan C.S, Smt. Niranjana N.S, Shri. Nikesh Kiran, Shri. Pramod K.V, Smt. Amrida G.S (Programme Officers) Smt. Jayanthi Narendran, Public Relations Officer Shri. Ajith Chacko, Chief Operating Officer , NRLM, Dr Praveen C.S, Chief Operating Officer, DDUGKY also attended the programme

From now onwards wives of Migrant Labourers will also become the part of Kudumbashree Mission. The first of its kind Neighbourhood  Group, exclusively for the wives of migrant labourers was launched at Edayar, an industrial area in Kochi. The NHG came into being during  March 2018 when Kudumbashree’s Kadungalloor Community Development Society (CDS) registered the NHG as Mahalakshmi NHG. The group consists of 16 house wives who hails from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. They had undergone a 32 day stitching training under Kudumbashree Ernakulam District Mission and  would soon set up two stitching units. The units would be registered as startup micro enterprises named Bismillah and Lakshmi.

The NHG came into being as a means to draw the children of migrant labourers in the region to the Government High School, Binanipuram, where the District Administration of Ernakulam piloted a project named Roshni, to bypass the language barrier to educate these children. As it was found to be good to train their mothers in stitching, which could then be turned into a livelihood opportunity, a training programme was organised for them, even though language was a main barrier in training the women. 

The group of 16 received their certificates in basic tailoring on 20 June 2018. Smt. Abida Khatum, hailing from Bihar is the President of the NHG and Bismillah startup unit. Most of them were doing household chores till then. They are looking forward to support their families better and also plans to attract more housewives to join the group. Kudumbashree District Mission of Ernakulam is confident of empowering them and making positive strides in inclusiveness.

Marking the first anniversary celebrations of its commercial operations, Kochi Metro, the first metro system in the country with an integrated multi modal transport system felicitated the 'super women' of Kudumbashree who had been employed in the Facility Management Department of Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL). Kudumbashree women were honored at the programme held at Edapally Metro Station, Kochi on 17 June 2018. Kudumbashree have been providing a vast array of services from customer relations, crowd management, housekeeping and catering services and became the largest crew of women to be employed by any metro. KMRL, along with Kudumbashree, had included persons from Transgender community in its operations, and thus became the first organization to appoint transgender persons as per the transgender policy of the Kerala Government.

The unique aspect of Kochi Metro itself is the deployment of the members of Kudumbashree, the women empowerment-oriented, community based self help groups for managing the operations at the metro stations. Kudumbashree women had risen above all the perceptions and excelled by their performance and hence elevated themselves into a world class work force. As per the agreement between Kudumbashree and Kochi Metro, all the services ranging from parking management to customer facilitation, from ticketing to housekeeping are entrusted with Kudumbashree. The ‘women metro team’ were selected through a rigorous process. More than 40,000 candidates appeared for the written exam, and the selected ones were called for a personal interview and out of them the women team were chosen. Kudumbashree members or their families were allowed to apply for the same.

Kudumbashree made its first major foray into the facility management market by establishing its own Facility Management Centre targeting at providing facility management services to major public and private sector companies. Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) became its first client. Later it has added Vyttila Mobility, Kerala's largest bus station to the client list. Facility Management Centre has put in place a performance appraisal system in which the employee performance is measured and analysed based on the clients feedback and requirements. It also has mentoring and personal coaching program for employees to improve performance. A proper 'Rewards and Recognition' program was also implemented to keep the best performers motivated and committed to the work. To keep the staff updated with the new trends in the facility management markets, the service of the internal training team is also used to continuously train the staff. The staff are also trained on soft skills and business etiquette to exhibit behavioral discipline on the floor. It also has put in place all the legal and mandatory compliance like Minimum wages Act, ESI and PF provisions etc and also has a valid GST registration. Kudumbashree Facility Management Center has today become of an epicenter for providing employment for women by so providing thousands of women employed with its clients.

Kudumbashree invitied entries for the Photography competition and logo designing competition in connection with the Animal Birth Control programme of Kudumbashree Mission. ' Stray Dog Issue' is the theme for Photography Competition. Those who are interested may take part in the competition by  sending their photographs. The entries should be sent on or before 5 July 2018. An applicant can send only one photograph. Photos should be in jpeg format and should be send to abcphotospem@gmail.com

Logos are to be designed for the Suraksha Campaign 2018 campaign, which is being conducted in the state to make the people aware of the Animal Birth Control activities of Kudumbashree.

An applicant can send upto 3 entries. The entries should be of 300 dpi resolution  and 3"x3" size. 5 July 2018 is the last date for receiving logos.The entries should be jpeg format and should be send to abclogospem@gmail.com

Name, address, email id, passport size photo of the applicant, mobile number etc should be attached  alongwith. Rs 10,000 and memento and Rs 5,000  and memento would be given for those who come in first and second places respectively in each competitions.

Entries called for Photography Competition in connection with Animal Birth Control Programme

Kudumbashree Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs)- Shree Krishna NHG from Kottukal Panchayath of Thiruvananthapuram District and Gramalakshmi NHG of Kaipamangalam Panchayath of Thrissur District received the National Awards constituted by National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) for the best performing NHGs from Shri. Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister of Rural Development, Government of India at the function held at A. P Shinde Hall, Pusa, New Delhi on 11 June 2018. Dr. K.R Shaiju, District Mission Coordinator, Thiruvananthapuram, Shri. Siyad. S, Assistant District Mission Coordinator, Thiruvananthapuramm, Shri. Baiju Muhammed M.A, Assistant District Mission Coordinator, Thrissur, Smt. Mini. A.K, CDS Chairperson, Thrissur, Smt. Prasanna Kumari, CDS Chairperson, Thiruvananthapuram, Smt. Omana Gopi, NHG President, Gramalakshmi NHG,Thrissur, Smt. Najeera, NHG Secretary, Gramalakshmi NHG, Thrissur, Smt. Radhika.O, NHG Secretary, Shree Krishna NHG, Thiruvananthapuram and Smt. Priyanka.V. NHG Member, Shree Krishna NHG, Thiruvananthapuram received the award from the Minister.

The Award was constituted for felicitating the NHGs who had shown outstanding performance. The activities performed during the previous financial year was considered for conferring the awards. The number of NHG meetings called, number of members attended, average attendance of each member, number of members who had attended trainings, total thrift, disbursal of corpus fund, internal lending status, community investment fund availed, corpus fund, total number of bank loans availed, number of units started using the bank loans, annual income, number of entrepreneurs included, scope of the enterprise, income, consistency, number of individual micro enterprises, regularity in keeping register, number of members who have personal bank accounts, ratio of the members who have insurance coverage, ratio of members who have sanitation facility at their homes and the leadership quality were the criteria for conferring the award. As per the guidelines, the respective district missions had submitted selected 3 NHGs from every districts. The selection committee comprising of Shri. S. Harikishore, Executive Director, Kudumbashree Mission, Smt. Ramlath, Director, Kudumbashree Mission and Shri. Pramod K.V, Programme Officer, selected the best 3 NHGs out of the 42 NHGs selected by the district and submitted to NRLM and out of those 3 NHGs, Shree Krishna NHG from Kottukal Panchayath of Thiruvananthapuram District and Gramalakshmi NHG of Kaipamangalam Panchayath of Thrissur District bagged the award.

Suraksha 2018, the State Level Animal Birth Control Awareness Campaign to propagate the ABC programme to the grassroot level was launched. Adv.K.Raju, Minister for Animal Husbandry, Forest, Dairy Development and Zoos,Government of Kerala inaugurated the campaign at IMG Hall, Thiruvananthapuram on 11 June 2018.

ABC Programme being implemented by Kudumbashree is the best way for controlling the breeding of dogs. Through the programme, 16,000 dogs across the state had been sterilized so far. Minister said. He also appreciated the efforts taken by Kudumbashree regarding the  Animal Birth Control activities. It is appreciable that Kudumbashree women are earning a life out of the same.  We could achieve self sufficiency in Dairy. It is also aimed to attain self sufficiency in ABC and Kerala Chicken as well. Minister added.

The programme envisages to propagate the awareness  on animal birth control upto the grassroot level. For the success of the programme it needs to be publicized among the common public and elected representatives. The  programme mainly focus on extending training to the existing ABC units, to propagate the details of the programme to more beneficiaries and start new ABC units. Photography Competition on ' Stray Dogs' would be conducted and ward-district level workshops would be conducted alongwith.

Shri. K. Muraleedharan, MLA presided over the function. Shri. S. Harikishore, Executive Director,Kudumbashree, Dr.N.N. Sasi, Director, Animal Husbandry Department and Shri. Binu.I.P, Ward Counsellor, Kunnukuzhy also attended the function. Dr.Nikesh Kiran, Programme  Officer, Animal Husbandry, Kudumbashree welcomed the gathering and Dr.L.Ravikumar, ABC Expert extended vote of thanks.

Kudumbashree Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs) bagged the National Award constituted by National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) for the best performing NHGs. Shree Krishna NHG from Kottukal Panchayath of Thiruvananthapuram District and Gramalakshmi NHG of Kaipamangalam Panchayath of Thrissur District are the NHGs which bagged the  National Award. Shri. Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister of Rural Development, Government of India will give away the awards at the function ti be held at A. P Shinde Hall, Pusa, Newdelhi on 11 June 2018.

The Award is constituted for felicitating the NHGs who had shown outstanding performance. The activities performed during the previous financial year would be considered for giving the awards. The number of NHG meetings called, number of members attended, average attendance of each member, number of members who had attended trainings, total thrift, disbursal of corpus fund, internal lending status, community investment fund availed, corpus fund, total number of bank loans availed, number of units started using the bank loans, annual income, number of entrepreneurs included, scope of the enterprise, income, consistency, number of individual micro enterprises, regularity in keeping register, number of members who have personal bank accounts, ratio of the members who have insurance coverage, ratio of members who have latrine facility at their homes and the leadership quality were the criteria for deciding the award.

As per the guidelines, the respective district missions had submitted selected 3 NHGs from every districts. The selection committee comprising of  Shri. S. Harikishore, Executive Director, Kudumbashree Mission, Smt. Ramlath, Director, Kudumbashree Mission and Shri. Pramod K.V, Programme Officer, selected the best 3 NHGs out of the 42 NHGs selected by the district and submitted to NRLM and out of those 3 NHGs two of them bagged the award.

Kudumbashree Mission have always been concerned about living in tune with Nature. So did the Mission adopted various quality environmental activities while implementing the programmes. While analyzing the business that Kudumbashree had been involved in, one could easily identify the same. Harithakarmasena for recycling the plastic, paper bag making enterprises as an alternative to plastic products, lending of reusable plates and glasses are the few initiatives that Kudumbashree Mission had put forward to fight back plastic pollution. As India is the global host of 2018 World Environment Day with “Beat Plastic Pollution” as the theme for this year’s edition, the world is coming together to combat single-use plastic pollution and so the activities of Kudumbashree has got much relevance.

Haritha Karma sena is a professional team consisting of Green Technicians and Green Supervisors mainly Kudumbashree Women who are assigned with the responsibility of collection, transportation, processing, recycling / disposal, and management of waste materials in association with respective Local Self Government Institutions and Suchithwa Mission. Kudumbashree is planning to give training 22,592 people and had already extended training to 19500 women. The Harithakarmasena had started functioning in 182 Local Self Government Institutions. Harithakarmasena was implemented to minimize the use of plastic and to make people aware of the hazardous effects of plastic, collect and send them for recycling and to decompose the biodegradable waste. A fixed amount was collected from the households and shops as user fee and a carry bag was given to store the wastes. A vacant space in a remote place in the locality was chosen to segregate the wastes. The waste is segregated into different sections based on its features such as H.M White, P.P, H.M, LDPrint, Bajar, Ganny, Bulb, PVC, steel, tubes, bottle, E- waste, LD(Glucose), Bottle caps, Spray bottle etc. A total of 285461 Kg of plastic was shredded and was handed over to Clean Kerala Company for using the same for road tarring process.

Kudumbashree have several Micro Enterprise units who are producing eco friendly products like paper bags, paper pen, paper covers, paper plates, paper files , paper chappals, cloth bags, bamboo products, screw pine product units etc. There are 77 such units working under Kudumbashree Mission. Around 50,000 such products are being sold out a month.During the season time it would increase upto 2 lakhs, which means that Kudumbashree could reduce the use of that much amount of plastic. Kudumbshree also have units which which make paper flowers, jewellery as well and have 12 units which make screw pine products.

There are 6 swap shop units working under Kudumbashree which lend utensils in bulk quantity to reduce the use of plastic and other non bio degradable products. Such Kudumbashree centres help in following the Green Protocol. While conducting trade fairs also, Kudumbashree focus in keeping the same eco friendly and made use of eco friendly products such as bamboo, sacks, jute etc for decorating and used palm products and reusable plates made of fibre, ceramic and steel for serving the food. Kudumbashree members had also been making active participation in fighting against plastic during the pilgrimages like Sabarimala, Malayattoor, Malayalapuzha, Aluva Shivaratri, Attukal etc. Kudumbashree Mission is committed in bring about a positive change in the sector of waste management and are implementing environment friendly programme envisioning a healthier, clean and green world that complements a human generation living in harmony with nature.

Kudumbashree women make a coruscating performance at the Trade Fairs organised in the districts to mark the Second Anniversary Celebrations of the Government of Kerala. The trade fairs were organised in 13 districts across the state except Alappuzha by the Information and Public Relations Department, Government of Kerala during May 2018. A sale of Rs 1.24 crore was recorded from the stalls and food stalls set up at the respective district headquarters. The Kudumbashree stalls made noteworthy achievements by becoming best stalls in few districts. In Kannur, Kudumbashree bagged the award for the 'Best Stall in the Non Departmental Category' and Pathanamthitta bagged the 'Best All Round Performance Award'. 'Special prize for the Stalls' was bagged by Wayanad District and Thiruvananthapuram bagged 'Second Prize for the best performance'.

Half of the total number of stalls set up in each districts as part of the trade fair was allotted for Kudumbashree for ensuring the participation of the women entrepreneurs and to help the women get benefited out of the same. 368 stalls and 71 cafe units were alloted altogether in 13 districts.More than 200 women became part of the trade fairs. Kudumbashree had marked its brilliant presence at the events by hosting the food courts delivering unique dishes and with products made by Kudumbashree women entrepreneurs. The cafe units rendered renowned local dishes with all the essence of being at home. The collective social change and empowerment that Kudumbashree had brought about among the women was evident from the success that they had attained during the trade fair. The commercial stalls and food stalls of Kudumbashree got good responses for bringing products with purity, homeliness and quality and was wholeheartedly welcomed by the public.

The Bala Parliament organised by Kudumbashree Mission sets a noteworthy model. Dr. K.T Jaleel, Minister, Local Self Government Department, Government of Kerala inaugurated the Bala Parliament held at Old Legislative Assembly Hall on 30 May 2018. Selected 131 students from 13 districts across the state except Kozhikode took part in the programme. Bala Parliament is being conducted by Kudumbashree Mission starting from 2007 to educate the children and to make them aware and understand the democratic process and its importance.

For the first time, an open forum was arranged to discuss with the selected representatives from the government departments, that the children face in the society. Smt. Prasanna Kumari, Deputy Director, Education Department, Shri. C Rajendran IFS, Forest Department (Deputy Conservator of Forest) Shri. G. Muraleedharan Nair, Deputy Excise Commissioner, Excise Department, Shri. C.J Antony, Acting Chairperson, Child Rights Commission and Dr. K. Sandeep, Deputy Director, Family Welfare Department interacted with the Children and answered the questions of the children.

Shri. Suresh Kumar, Deputy Secretary, Centre for Parliamentary Studies lead a class on 'Why Bala Parliament' at Loyola College on 29 May 2018. Students were divided into different groups and out of them 20 students were identified roles of President, Prime Minister, Speaker, Opposition Leader and Ministers of various departments. After the Bala Parliament, the Balasabha children also visited the New Legislative Assembly Complex.

Smt. G.S Amrida, Programme Officer, Social Development, Kudumbashree Mission welcomed the gathering and Dr. K.R Shaiju, Thiruvananthapuram District Mission Coordinator extended Vote of Thanks. The prime objective of constituting Balasabhas is to prevent inter-generational transmission of poverty through capability enhancement of children. Small Learning Groups for experimental and systematic learning, opportunities for understanding democratic process, participation in conserving environment, enabling children to unfold the intricacies of collectivisation are the basic focal points of Balasabha.