A business school for rural women has helped turn around lives, fortunes

It has hardly rained this year in the drought-stricken Mhaswad village of Satara district yet Indutai Raut, in her fifties, is happy. Her family has been successful in tiding over these difficult months without giving in to the moneylenders. What helped was her decision to deposit the Rs 3,000 she earned from her tailoring business in the Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank, a cooperative bank run by and for women in the village. Indutai is an example of how rural entrepreneurship among women can sometimes turn around fortunes, even lives.

Indutai set up her tailoring business after a 10-day course in financial management at the Mann Deshi Udyogini (MDU), a special business school set up in 1996 for clients of the Mahila Bank. The course was specially designed so that Indutai, who has never been to school, could develop her entrepreneurial skills without getting bogged down by business jargon. The same course helped Jayashree Bagal, who is hearing impaired, earn a living too. Today, she helps her husband run a boutique in Mumbai.

Besides Indutai and Jayashree, the business school has among its alumni Vanita Pise, who bagged the Woman Exemplar Award from the Prime Minister in 2006. Pise is a champion of the self-help movement, having set up 35 self-help groups in Mhaswad village. This ninth grader, who did a short course from the institute and is one of the early clients of the bank, now helps women make paper cups for prasad. She says microfinance is easy on borrowers. “Microfinance allows you to work to your strength and earn profits as well. It is different as you start with a small loan. Once the profits start coming in, you can move on to bigger loans,” says Pise, proud that she can now supports her family of four.

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