Support Social Innovation in Rural India

In the last three months we've been busy incubating change, major highlights include:

1. Monthly workshops for our Investees, starting in July with ‘Managing Graphic Designers’ held by Ribhu Vohra from Wasteless, followed in August with a workshop on ‘Legalities & Governance’ by Hema Srinivasan by Trust Law, Chennai and in September a workshop on ‘Branding and Messaging’ facilitated by Ryan Kretch from Social Starters UK.
2. 5 of our investees from September 2014 cohort graduated from our program and gave end of year presentations highlighting the growth of their ventures with the support of UnLtd Tamil Nadu
3. We organized Open house events with the Integral Entrepreneurship Lab for Auroville startups and project holders focusing on Human Resource management tools (Recruitment, Training and Development, Performance management and Organization culture). We also presented three Apprenticeship opportunities to Auroville Youth in the fields of Marketing, Fundraising and Incubation during International Youth Day.
4. Gijs and Cecile - a volunteer from HEC Paris, France- attended the ANDE India Chapter meeting on Corporate partnerships in Bangalore.
5. We partnered with Social Starters UK to provide professional support and guidance to our start ups. Fifteen consultants from the corporate sector come to UnLtd Tamil Nadu and work with eleven of our start ups. During the first program we took on a wide range of projects: livelihoods through herbal medicine, Spirulina superfood, gypsy handicraft and sustainable agriculture, as well as waste and upcycling, ecotourism and conflict resolution.

The month of September 2015 was a particularly CRAZY month with three highlights for our organization:

#1 We are proud to announce the selection of our fifth cohort of social entrepreneurs, comprised of seven inspiring changemakers leading projects with high potential for social impact:

• `Gipsy John` re-applied for Skill Development and Livelihoods for Gipsy communities in Pondicherry
• Tendul Raj´s Teekz provides entrepreneurship and IT training to semi-rural students in Pondicherry to improve their employability
• Krupa´s Sankalpa: Art Journeys, an Art therapy project based in Auroville
• Abha´s Equals Centre for Promotion of Social Justice, based in Chennai works on disability advocacy
• Logamal´s Children’s Parliament empowers children to be social activists in their communities across rural villages of Thiruvallur district
• Senthil´s Child - home for children, supports HIV-AIDs affected girls in rural areas around Chennai
• Balamurugan´s New Education For Social Integration Society  (NESI), promotes a farmer-producer company offering training on sustainable agriculture to rural farmers around Tindivanam.

#2 Our team and a handful of our start ups had the honor of meeting and interacting with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus at Rajiv Gandhi National Institute for Youth Development in Chennai. Prof. Yunus a.k.a. `banker to the poor` is a social entrepreneurship icon, economist and civil society leader. He founded the Grameen Bank, pioneering microfinance and now gave an inspiring lecture on 'Turning unemployment to entrepreneurship: Motivating Indian youth for social business' followed by an insightful workshop on 'Social Business models'. At this platform, we had the privilege of introducing him to UnLtd Tamil Nadu and our efforts to foster social innovation at the grassroots, as well as a few of our investees who showcased their work through stalls and product displays.

#3 Finally, our team conducted Symplexity, a two-day workshop on Holistic Leadership in Auroville. 15 participants (Indian social entrepreneurs and executives from the corporate sector from 3 continents) explored a new path to leadership based on personal development and change leadership. Approaches include: Presencing and Systemic change by Ashoka Fellow and UnLtd Tamil Nadu founder Gijs Spoor, Co-creation and working with the Essential Self by Aurovillian Anand Shanti, and Awareness Through the Body by Aurovillian trainer Amir Azulay. Then we applied tools in the field with a visit to Ecoservice, Auroville’s waste management service and Upcycling Studio -reusing discarded material to create higher-value products such as fashion accessories and furniture.

This a short summary of our work in the last 3 months. We already have lots and lots more to share, so do stay tuned!

THANKS again for your support