By Vanita Shinde | CAO
Chetna Sinha, the winner of the 2013 Social Entrepreneur of the Year (SEOY)-India award
On 11 November, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, a sister organization of the World Economic Forum, in partnership with the Jubilant Bhartia Foundation announced Chetna Sinha, Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank and Mann Deshi Foundation, as the winner of the 2013 Social Entrepreneur of the Year (SEOY)-India award.
Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank and Mann Deshi Foundation, established in 1997, headquartered in Mhaswad, Maharashtra, aspire to create 1 million rural women entrepreneurs in India by 2020. The group manages three institutions that together help create alternate livelihoods and incomes for rural women: a women-owned rural cooperative bank that extends a range of financial services; a rural mobile MBA school that offers skill and entrepreneurship training; and a chamber of commerce that facilitates market and policy linkages.
Sujata Mane started out in business with a small sweet shop, a farm field, and a buffalo. She accessed the Mann Deshi Bank for a loan to buy a noodle machine. The Bank referred her to the Mann Deshi Foundation and recommended she enroll in a financial literacy class and a self-help group to improve her chances of success. After paying off the loan, she took another in order to buy a chili-power machine. She later borrowed enough to expand her small sweet shop into a larger grocery store. She began concentrating on branding her products, using skills she learned with Mann Deshi. Meanwhile, she also started seeing profits from her plot of agricultural land, thanks to the assistance of Mann Deshi’s agricultural training programming. She is now so busy that she employs her husband to distribute her products. Sujata is now the leader of her self-help group, a graduate of the Deshi MBA program, a landowner, and a provider for six family members.
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