Our Covid-19 Response : Covid-19 1st | 2nd Wave

Micro enterprises

On the road to empowerment

Micro enterprises

Producer organisations for strengthening livelihoods

We are working with marginal women farmers across geographies on a livelihood model comprising of multiple components a) mobilisation b) analysis of local resources c) enhancing skill sets d) development of products, e) pricing and packaging and f) market access

Our experience has taught us that small and marginal farmers and artisans face diverse challenges such as low income, limited or no access to the right inputs, inadequate knowledge of modern techniques, and a lack of direct and suitable market access. These pose as major impediments, hampering their growth and development. In this context, we are promoting the formation of producer organisations and enterprises to unleash the potential of small and marginal farmers and artisans.

In the modern era of start-ups and a digital revolution, there is a lot of scope for promoting entrepreneurship among rural youth and women. We provide trainings, mentoring, networking, seed funding, financial linkages and other needs-based support to youth to enable their holistic development.

Our interventions are aligned with Sustainable Development Goals 2030 ( SDGs) GOAL 1: No Poverty, GOAL 5: Gender Equality, GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth, GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

Production Cluster

Social enterprises that address social issues

We believe that an important aspect of empowerment is in skill building and creation of opportunity. Opportunities can be created in villages and small towns through the set up of local village enterprises. Agro-processing needs medium-level entrepreneurs to mobilise themselves into producer groups. It’s difficult for small and marginal farmers to set up an agro-processing unit on their own. Mostly investors don’t want to go to small towns and remote rural areas, because of infrastructure, transport, electricity and perhaps law-and-order issues. Access to finance also is difficult. So, there is need for philanthropic investment. Given this context, promoting Producer Organisations can be an important intervention.

To improve the local economy, we need to improve rural entrepreneurs' access to the market and infrastructure support. They need access to storage, transport and, most important, their need to organise themselves into farmer-producer groups so that their can access the market collectively. Getting the right information at the right time is critical in ensuring better prices for their produce.

The focus of our interventions has been on unleashing the potential of women through enterprise. We have promoted enterprises units where women are engaging in the production of spices, pulses, pickle and apparel, crafts products and the agriculture value chain as well. We do this by setting up robust farmer-producer institutions which have capital and risk-taking ability. There is a need to channel support from the government and philanthropic organisations to make our endeavour sustainable, and reach out to a larger section of the rural poor.

Food Products

Women farmers are engaged in production, procurement, processing and packaging of a variety of food products - Pickles, Spices, Pulses, Dairy, Honey and Mustard Oil, all marketed under their very own Katori™ brand

Artisan's Products

Women artisans are engaged in production of garments and crafts, marketed under their own Upaya brand

Artisan's Products

Women artisans engaged in production of garments and craft products marketed under their very own Upaya brand

What People Say

We are happy to collaborate with Manjari Foundation under Social Initiative Parivartan. Parivartan and Manjari share a common goal of bringing about a comprehensive and sustainable development at the grassroots. The partnership has brought about a positive change through several thematic interventions including micro-enterprise development, capacity building, health, and education. As a result of this initiative, we have seen effective community engagement and empowerment and the resident of Dholpur district (Rajasthan) continue to get benefitted. We will continue to work on similar projects to improve the lives of the less privileged through our Holistic Rural Development Programme.
Ms Nusrat Pathan, Head Corporate Social Responsibility, HDFC Bank
‘Sakhi’ means a friend in Hindi, someone who stands by in trying times and during jubilations too. 26500+ women from across 2212 SHG’s and 6 Federation have come together to be the same for each other by making Micro Finance work for them. Sakhi is a platform of rural women which aims at economic well-being, reduction in poverty, self-dependence, and development of personal and social standing in the society through establishing Micro Finance and Micro Enterprises. Hindustan Zinc Limited together with its partners Saheli Sameti and Manjari Foundation are working towards unlocking their potential and empowering them to lead as Enablers.
Mrs. Anupama Nidhi, CSR HEAD HZL
Manjari Foundation is IPE Global’s implementation partner in Dholpur, Rajasthan under the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), UK supported Project Udaan that aims at reducing teenage pregnancies. They have been instrumental in successfully piloting interventions for improving the knowledge of adolescents around sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in Bari block of Dholpur. Their efforts in organizing a team to take up the issue of adolescent SRH and facilitating its implementation with great sensitivity across the block has not only been recognized by the district administration, but has also paved way for attempting a scale-up across the district. Their coordination with the community-level institutions, local government bodies and the target group has been noteworthy and exemplary.
Mr. Ashish Banerjee, IPE Global
Without larger vision and dedication of the team of MF and its leadership, both vertical and horizontal growth would have never been possible to pick up at this level in this short history of its evolution. Since I have been associated with the Sakhi project of MF funded by Hindustan Zinc for the last 2 years, the happiness and confidence seen in their faces of hundreds of women in the villages proves its vitality. I have also witnessed the UN-women funded second chance education project (SCE) being implemented in 3 districts under the guidance of PRADAN is a much worthy to reach out to those young women in the age group of 16-35 who have been deprived in their childhood with the education, skills and employment are now happily enrolled and trained to overcome these deprivations with much positive outcome. While writing all these statements, I recall each visit to the project area to witness the change processes that were taking place within those women who had never dreamed of being so empowered and self-reliant so soon in their lifetimes.
Binod Raj Dahal, Integrator- PRADAN
Our collaboration with Manjari has allowed us to better understand the approach of solidarity groups and concretely towards the empowerment of women in the commune of Logo.The participation of Indian PRCs has been beneficial because the women have appropriated easily by seeing that they are rural women Indian women who share their experiences with them. The Camide team was formed by the professionals of Manjari with enthusiasm and professionalism and is able to reproduce most of the activities. This period of collaboration opens up prospects for our two structures to replicate the model in Mali and Africa. We again thank Manjari for all the efforts made for Camide and particularly the Director Sanjay Kumar. We were able to reach more than 2,500 women and more than 180 million CFA francs of credit granted four test henhouses substantial support for the winter and market gardening campaign in terms of results thank you.
Mr. Aou Keita, Director Camide, Kayes, Mali, West Africa
Development of Corporate Citizenship (DoCC), the social internship program of SPJIMR has been collaborating with Manjari Foundation since 2015. This has been fruitful relationship for us. I want to emphasise the four following themes. First the internships give our students a different idea of leadership which also gives them a sense of requirements for the future and adds to the ethics of sociological content. The participants acquire a notion of innovation- both social and technical which gives them a systemic view of the society. Such an empirical location gives them both a sense of limits and possibilities of what they can do. Environmental consciousness and gender sensitivity constitute two critical parts of social responsibility as we define it today. The participants of the internship understand what these key concepts mean in everyday sense. Internship at Manjari adds to their imagination in this direction. We value this relationship.
Dr. Chandrika Parmar, S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research