Ahead of Women’s Day, meet Jaishree Shetole who benefited from a Gender Integrated Accelerated Entrepreneurship Development Program (AEDP) and secured her children’s future.
New Delhi: Institutional support, policy frameworks, literacy, numeracy, technical as well as vocational training can help India’s rural women to access better income-generating opportunities. Jaishree Shetole, a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Niwali Barwani, Madhya Pradesh, has perfectly exemplified of how mentorship and requisite training can help break generational cycles of poverty and gender oppression.
Jaishree has come a long way from the time she had to put a full stop to her class 10 education due to financial struggles. She was subsequently married off and endured years of severe domestic violence before choosing to leave her marital home with her children.
Humble Beginning
While living with her parents, she decided to secure the future of her children by starting a business. During this crucial period, she became part of a youth mobilization drive initiated by Transform Rural India (TRI), a foundation that designs community-focused, grounded solutions to bring about scalable change in rural India. It strives to provide equal and inclusive opportunities to rural citizens like Jaishree by deploying innovations in public and private systems.
Speaking to India.com, she said, “My life changed gears when I met a youth fellow, Vandana Ahire, and sought help to be able to provide a better life for my children. She connected me to Neha Jadhav, the hub manager, whose guidance gave me the confidence to start my own business. I was always interested in tailoring and on Neha’s recommendation, I joined a long-duration skill training program at the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) Niwali, focusing on tailoring and boutique management.”
From Scratch to Riches
After completing her training, she started her boutique but soon realised that she lacked advanced business skills and needed additional financial aid and assistance to grow. Aided by TRI, she then attended the Gender Integrated-Accelerated Entrepreneurship Development Program (AEDP), a 10-day training module developed in synergy with Tata Strive.
For a single mother who not too long ago, was battling domestic violence, this empowering program was life-changing and helped her gain the business knowledge and financial assistance she needed for expansion. As Jaishree states, “AEDP is like a mini-MBA and it helped me to understand the significance of the 5 Ps (Product, Place, Price, People, and Promotion) in any business enterprise. It equipped me with real-world knowledge as well as essential business skills and helped me transcend social and structural barriers.”
The AEDP training helped her create a business plan for the next three years and she also received a loan through the Rang De app, a social investment platform supporting rural enterprises.
Future Business Plans
Today, Jaishree’s enterprise is well-established and she’s also accepting digital payments from customers. She has hired two workers and is planning to start a stitching training centre alongside her boutique which will not just boost her income but also empower other women in her community. She is living proof of the success of TRI’s multi-faceted approach that invests in the potential of underserved people to achieve sustainable progress in rural India.
Transform Rural India has taken another landmark step by rolling out the Youth Empower Bond through the Social Stock Exchange (SSE) platform to benefit more young businesswomen like Jaishree. The bonds will offer an opportunity to donors, CSR spenders, the general public, and philanthropic foundations to invest in the development of the rural sector through TRI’s Youth Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment Program (YESE). According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) report, the unemployment rate among Indian youth was 45.4% in 2022-23 – a staggering six times higher than India’s overall unemployment rate of 7.5%. The situation is even more challenging in rural areas with more than 70% of rural youth not engaged in education, training, or formal employment. TRI’s listing on the NSE is a stride towards enhancing transparency in India’s social investments.
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