विश्वास— The story of Rural Women becoming Entrepreneur
The story is of setting and running a small scale soap making unit of 10 women, who belong to economically weak class society.

The philosophy was to make kids feel that, yes they are employable even when they are studying. This idea came out of students who work to earn and learn outside India. But, pondering into the fact that employing students detach them from their main purpose of study and make them the sole earner of their family; forced me to drop the idea. After digging into the cause, we found that adults are responsible so that kids can study and make a brighter future. So, the next question I realized was how to bring the change in lives of people?
There are two steps to achieve this:
1.) Emotional support / striking
2.) Financial support
It was during the first year of fellowship journey, we were able to strike the emotional side of the people by melting their icebergs, so this was the time to work on their financial side. The very simple question was, why Women Entrepreneurship? Because, most of the men in Lambi Aheer(village) only drink and sleep. They are dependent on their wives’ income(from labour work), it was obvious to make women empowered.
SHG was the first, that come into the picture. Along with it, the local NGO which works in INCOME GENERATION ACTIVITY for them.
Few names were:
1.) Ambuja cement foundation(50 SHG with basic saving habits being taught).
2.) Nirmaan(Sanitary pad, Sewing , Embroidery, Weaving).
Two deciding factors for planning the project for me were:
1.) Local needs, as local consumption was needed for production.
2.) Project deadline was 1 month.
Following projects were short listed for initial survey:
1.) Agarbatti (Incense stick)
2.) Mombatti(Candle)
3.) Eatables(Mangodi-Badi)
4.) Soap
After having a survey we realized, Soap was something that had the daily market and the local consumption too.
During Survey the questions that were raised, which helped me strengthen my project proposal were:
1.) Do you have the business Model ?
2.) What will be the profit as women also goes in NREGA (Labour) ?
3.) Do you know how to make it ?
4.) If our product did not get sold ? Who will take the risk?
5.) Working with women of economically backward classes will make them questionable by their husbands?
Jhunjhunu- Visit 1
The Next phase was to know, how and what kind of support we can get for soap making from government agencies. To my surprise, there were units in Jhunhunu. Even I visited one, Parakh. But then, after my first conversation with one unit I realized, why would anyone tell his formula of soap making? Then, I even visited small and medium scale industries’ offices. But apart from loan information, nothing regarding soap recipe was found.
Jhunjhunu- Visit 2
After googling the recipe and reading online content, I came to know that Project officer can conduct the training for the women and yes, the cost of making soap was really less. That could also easily fetch the profit for the women. So, the bike now moved towards Jhunjhunu.
After having minutes with Project officer, he was ready to
/- Provide fund , /- Provide subsidy , /- Provide training
But his concerns were- how will you make it sustainable? Say, in Oct. 2017 ‘kaun sabun bech raha hoga ‘, ‘ kya mahilayein bechengi sabun?’
Lesson from the conversation : —
- Officer wanted, whatever we start, we have to be involved in that and involvement requires an extra effort. So, If we show the sustainability in our work, then he is happy to do it.
- Take away from the meeting : To find a sustainability model
1 st Soap Prototype
With some people’s knowledge and internet findings, we brought the raw material and made our first soap. It took around 2 days to get dry and after using it and making people use it, the reviews were positive. My first 2kg order was placed :). My first soap was made in 30 rs/kg.
Research
What you make -> You should have the knowledge of science behind it. So, the science behind the soap making and how the soap can be made more economical, was our next task.
Washing soda + scent was what we added after hours of research.
After Testing the new soap, the final prototype was ready to be used for training the rural women in the village .
Along with it, we also looked into the Packaging and Mould pouring techniques, as were used by the other small scale soap companies.
Search : For finding the women, who want to earn + work + are economically backward
The social worker calls it as a Transit walk. Our first aim was to find houses that were not so good looking or kuccha ghar. We found Kansinghpura(1), Lambi Aheer(2), Lambi Jaat(3), Sawal wala johad(4) households. But, after a while we recognized that even people who are going to work in NREGA, live in medium sized houses. So, that is not the way things should be identified. We started thinking of those households which do not had agricultural land and had a higher possibility of women taking interest to work. So, our bike landed us in ISHKPURA.
Training- Day 1 :
Initially i was not able to mobilize the people but with the Sarpanch’s call people gathered . But one good thing I learned was that people come either by fear or there is some hidden agenda of financial schemes. There were around 19 women and 5 adults to train. So, I headed my way to a bigger training model.


On the very same day, 3 more women were given training in Sarpanch Ji’s House.
Training- Day 2
With around 18 women, 14 men and 8 youths, the training for soap making was conducted in NREGA. The response was positive, that was the moment when I got the women, who were willing to enter the business model, they were economically weak. From the same pitch, people were asked to bring the raw material and they wanted to make it in their homes, as 20 rs/kg was the benefit. A young labour made the soap by himself after the training and to my surprise, it was good.






Training- Day3
I started training in Lambi Jaat with 7 women and pitched the idea about the business model and how they can make profit. Sukhdeep handled the financial pitch as we did the finance’s homework beforehand. So, a sign of relief came when 4 women nodded yes and they were also the type of women we wanted to work with.

Reviews of the soap
After couple of days we went to NREGA to see how soap was made and asked people to use it and give it’s review. Few of them were:
1.) ‘Sasta hai aur safai toh badiya ho jati hai ’
2.) ‘ Bhaiya , Jo surf aur sabun lagake daag nahi nikalta ab woh keval aapki sabun lagake nikal jata hai’.
3.) ‘Hume sabun ka maal lake do, paise bhi le lo. Hum ghar main banayenge’.
4.) ‘Hum isse ghar ke istemal se jyada bechne ke liye banayege. Bas maal lake de do’.
The 4th review opened the way to get another unit on board in Kansinghpura, with 4 ladies who work in NREGA but were open to earn more and to have their own identity in the village.
Production started in Lambi Jaat unit


Production started in 2nd unit Kansinghpura
After getting the mutual nod from the women, during conversation they said :
‘Hum toh isko banayenge bhi aur bechenge bhi’
‘’Nahi nahi Saab, kya sehmati, ghar main banayenge aur bechenge’

Market visit to get the shopkeeper’s review

Reviews on which we had to work on :
1.) Packing is not that attractive, Make it a rectangular cube. There is no name on the soap.
2.) Every piece does not have the same dimensions, so cut it equally.
3.) There are not any attractive scheme for shopkeepers.
So, after looking into the reviews, we got white paper + seal of the SHG group ‘Vishwaas’. We got a rectangular cube cut by the welder, which resulted in cutting every piece to be of equal size.





One thing about villages is, whatever you do in a village it spreads like anything. Youth stepped into start a unit by themselves, I just needed to supply the raw materials and everything was to be handled by them. But, I had to keep them on hold for a month, so that we can built the market by then.
Documentation
As by now, 2 units are completely functional and are able to produce soap. We were able to make 44 kgs of soap. And the women were ready to sell it in the local market, to the shopkeepers and households.
The next step was, to teach them the documentation that is needed to be done for production and sales. So that, there is no discrepancy in the accounts within 5 members. Meetings were fixed to review the account book and production; packaging dates were decided. So, in coming month, 90 kg soap is to be made by each unit.









