Suraksha 2018, the State Level Animal Birth Control Awareness Campaign to propagate the ABC programme to the grassroot level was launched. Adv.K.Raju, Minister for Animal Husbandry, Forest, Dairy Development and Zoos,Government of Kerala inaugurated the campaign at IMG Hall, Thiruvananthapuram on 11 June 2018.

ABC Programme being implemented by Kudumbashree is the best way for controlling the breeding of dogs. Through the programme, 16,000 dogs across the state had been sterilized so far. Minister said. He also appreciated the efforts taken by Kudumbashree regarding the  Animal Birth Control activities. It is appreciable that Kudumbashree women are earning a life out of the same.  We could achieve self sufficiency in Dairy. It is also aimed to attain self sufficiency in ABC and Kerala Chicken as well. Minister added.

The programme envisages to propagate the awareness  on animal birth control upto the grassroot level. For the success of the programme it needs to be publicized among the common public and elected representatives. The  programme mainly focus on extending training to the existing ABC units, to propagate the details of the programme to more beneficiaries and start new ABC units. Photography Competition on ' Stray Dogs' would be conducted and ward-district level workshops would be conducted alongwith.

Shri. K. Muraleedharan, MLA presided over the function. Shri. S. Harikishore, Executive Director,Kudumbashree, Dr.N.N. Sasi, Director, Animal Husbandry Department and Shri. Binu.I.P, Ward Counsellor, Kunnukuzhy also attended the function. Dr.Nikesh Kiran, Programme  Officer, Animal Husbandry, Kudumbashree welcomed the gathering and Dr.L.Ravikumar, ABC Expert extended vote of thanks.

Lissy D Silva was like any other woman until she joined Kudumbashree. Hailing from Fort Kochi, she had studied upto twelfth standard only. And now she had transcended boundaries through Kudumbashree Mission. It is through EST&P ( Employment through Skills Training & Placement of National Rural Livelihood Mission (NULM) that Lissy's life had changed. She had undergone the orientation programme organised in the west CDS of Kochi Corporation.  She had an ardent desire to get employed and earn a livelihood of her own. And later she was enrolled in the NULM housekeeping batch 1 of Rajagiri College of Social Sciences, Kalamassery, Ernakulam after aptitude test and counselling. Under the guidance of veteran trainers of Rajagiri, she was able to discover her true potential and hidden talents. From there, she learned the lessons of housekeeping, soft skills, IT skills and English. A grooming session was also arranged alongwith.  

After the successful completion of the course, Lissy was given placement in ABAD group by Rajagiri. She worked in the housekeeping section of ABAD for almost an year. Later she was recruited to their overseas school in Dubai. Presently, she is working as a housekeeping supervisor in 'The Bloomington Academy', Ajman, Dubai with a salary of Rs 25,000 per month.Her story can be considered as one of the best epitomes of Kudumbashree Mission's interventions.

Kudumbashree Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs) bagged the National Award constituted by National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) for the best performing NHGs. Shree Krishna NHG from Kottukal Panchayath of Thiruvananthapuram District and Gramalakshmi NHG of Kaipamangalam Panchayath of Thrissur District are the NHGs which bagged the  National Award. Shri. Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister of Rural Development, Government of India will give away the awards at the function ti be held at A. P Shinde Hall, Pusa, Newdelhi on 11 June 2018.

The Award is constituted for felicitating the NHGs who had shown outstanding performance. The activities performed during the previous financial year would be considered for giving the awards. The number of NHG meetings called, number of members attended, average attendance of each member, number of members who had attended trainings, total thrift, disbursal of corpus fund, internal lending status, community investment fund availed, corpus fund, total number of bank loans availed, number of units started using the bank loans, annual income, number of entrepreneurs included, scope of the enterprise, income, consistency, number of individual micro enterprises, regularity in keeping register, number of members who have personal bank accounts, ratio of the members who have insurance coverage, ratio of members who have latrine facility at their homes and the leadership quality were the criteria for deciding the award.

As per the guidelines, the respective district missions had submitted selected 3 NHGs from every districts. The selection committee comprising of  Shri. S. Harikishore, Executive Director, Kudumbashree Mission, Smt. Ramlath, Director, Kudumbashree Mission and Shri. Pramod K.V, Programme Officer, selected the best 3 NHGs out of the 42 NHGs selected by the district and submitted to NRLM and out of those 3 NHGs two of them bagged the award.

Kudumbashree bagged Award for effectively implementing activities for curbing plastic. Shri. M.M Mani, Minister for Electricity, Government of Kerala gave away the award to Smt. Niranjana N.S, Programme Officer, Micro enterprises, Kudumbashree Mission at the programme held at Kanakakunnu Palace on 5 June 2018, Environment Day. The award was constituted by Haritha Kerala Mission in association with Department of Environment and Climate Change, Government of Kerala.

It's for successfully implementing various activities for eliminating and minimizing the use of plastic that Kudumbashree received the award.  Kudumbashree had been implementing 3 different type of activities for eliminating plastic. Harithakarmasena for recycling the plastic, paper bag making enterprises as an alternative to plastic products, lending of reusable plates and glasses are the few initiatives that Kudumbashree Mission had put forward to fight back plastic pollution.  Haritha Karma sena is a professional team consisting of Green Technicians and Green Supervisors mainly Kudumbashree Women who are assigned with the responsibility of collection, transportation, processing, recycling / disposal, and management of waste materials in association with respective Local Self Government Institutions and Suchithwa Mission. 

Kudumbashree have in hand 77 Micro Enterprise units who are producing eco friendly products like paper bags, paper pen, paper covers, paper plates, paper files , paper chappals, cloth bags, bamboo products, screw pine product units etc.  Around 50,000 such products are being sold out a month. During the season time it would increase upto 2 lakhs, which means that Kudumbashree could reduce the use of that much amount of plastic. Kudumbshree also have units which which make paper flowers, jewellery as well and have 12 units which make screw pine products. There are 6 swap shop units working under Kudumbashree which lend utensils in bulk quantity to reduce the use of plastic and other non bio degradable products. Such Kudumbashree centres help in following the Green Protocol. While conducting trade fairs also, Kudumbashree focus in keeping the same eco friendly and made use of eco friendly products such as bamboo, sacks, jute etc for decorating and used palm products and reusable plates made of fibre, ceramic and steel for serving the food. Kudumbashree members had also been making active participation in fighting against plastic during the pilgrimages like Sabarimala, Malayattoor, Malayalapuzha, Aluva Shivaratri, Attukal etc.

Kudumbashree Mission have always been concerned about living in tune with Nature. So did the Mission adopted various quality environmental activities while implementing the programmes. While analyzing the business that Kudumbashree had been involved in, one could easily identify the same. Harithakarmasena for recycling the plastic, paper bag making enterprises as an alternative to plastic products, lending of reusable plates and glasses are the few initiatives that Kudumbashree Mission had put forward to fight back plastic pollution. As India is the global host of 2018 World Environment Day with “Beat Plastic Pollution” as the theme for this year’s edition, the world is coming together to combat single-use plastic pollution and so the activities of Kudumbashree has got much relevance.

Haritha Karma sena is a professional team consisting of Green Technicians and Green Supervisors mainly Kudumbashree Women who are assigned with the responsibility of collection, transportation, processing, recycling / disposal, and management of waste materials in association with respective Local Self Government Institutions and Suchithwa Mission. Kudumbashree is planning to give training 22,592 people and had already extended training to 19500 women. The Harithakarmasena had started functioning in 182 Local Self Government Institutions. Harithakarmasena was implemented to minimize the use of plastic and to make people aware of the hazardous effects of plastic, collect and send them for recycling and to decompose the biodegradable waste. A fixed amount was collected from the households and shops as user fee and a carry bag was given to store the wastes. A vacant space in a remote place in the locality was chosen to segregate the wastes. The waste is segregated into different sections based on its features such as H.M White, P.P, H.M, LDPrint, Bajar, Ganny, Bulb, PVC, steel, tubes, bottle, E- waste, LD(Glucose), Bottle caps, Spray bottle etc. A total of 285461 Kg of plastic was shredded and was handed over to Clean Kerala Company for using the same for road tarring process.

Kudumbashree have several Micro Enterprise units who are producing eco friendly products like paper bags, paper pen, paper covers, paper plates, paper files , paper chappals, cloth bags, bamboo products, screw pine product units etc. There are 77 such units working under Kudumbashree Mission. Around 50,000 such products are being sold out a month.During the season time it would increase upto 2 lakhs, which means that Kudumbashree could reduce the use of that much amount of plastic. Kudumbshree also have units which which make paper flowers, jewellery as well and have 12 units which make screw pine products.

There are 6 swap shop units working under Kudumbashree which lend utensils in bulk quantity to reduce the use of plastic and other non bio degradable products. Such Kudumbashree centres help in following the Green Protocol. While conducting trade fairs also, Kudumbashree focus in keeping the same eco friendly and made use of eco friendly products such as bamboo, sacks, jute etc for decorating and used palm products and reusable plates made of fibre, ceramic and steel for serving the food. Kudumbashree members had also been making active participation in fighting against plastic during the pilgrimages like Sabarimala, Malayattoor, Malayalapuzha, Aluva Shivaratri, Attukal etc. Kudumbashree Mission is committed in bring about a positive change in the sector of waste management and are implementing environment friendly programme envisioning a healthier, clean and green world that complements a human generation living in harmony with nature.

As part of the field visit, the members of the Fifteenth Finance Commission of India visited the Sreesailam Nutrimix Unit, located at Koratty of Thrissur District. It is as the part of the evaluation of the development programmes being implemented in the state, that the finance commission visited the Nutrimix unit. Sreesailam Nutrimix Unit had already been evaluated as the best example of women empowerment activities being implemented. The unit which was started 10 years ago is now producing 1800 tonnes of Nutrimix per month. After analyzing the working of the unit, the finance commission envisions to include the same as a model project in the finance planning programme.

The finance commission included Shri. Aravind Mehta, Secretary, Finance Commission, Shri. Mukhmeet Singh Bhatia, Joint Secretary, Finance Commission, Shri. Antony Cyriac, Economic Adviser, Shri. Bharat Bhushan Garg, OSD Director, Shri. A.S Parmar, Joint Director, Shri. Adithi Pathak, Deputy Director, Shri. Mahesh Kumar, Shri. Pramod Kumar and Shri. Gopalakrishnan ( Assistant Directors). Dr. A Kaushigan,District Collector, Thrissur, Shri. Joy Ilamon, Director, KILA, Shri. S. Harikishore, Executive Director, Kudumbashree Mission and Shri. K.V Jyothish Kumar, District Mission coordinator, Thrissur also accompanied the team. The Finance commission also appreciated the activities of Green Army of Wadakkancherry.

Amrutham Nutrimix is the food supplement provided to the children of the age group of 6 months to 3 years. It comes in 500 grams packet. Wheat, Soya Chunks, Bengal gram, Groundnut and Sugar are the basic ingredients . From 2006 onwards Kudumbashree is collaborating with the Social Welfare Department for the supply of Take Home Ration for Supplementary Nutrition to the 33000 ‘Anganwadis’ in the State. The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) provides the Supplementary Nutrition for children in the form of Take Home Ration (THR).An average of 1300 metric tones of Nutrimix are distributed through the Anganavadis every month The Nutrimix powder was developed as per the directions of Integrated Child Development Services Programme. Nutrimix has enabled thousands of rural women to manufacture and supply the nutritional supplement to their children all across the state to reach out to the children who are suffering from the issues of malnutrition.

Kudumbashree women make a coruscating performance at the Trade Fairs organised in the districts to mark the Second Anniversary Celebrations of the Government of Kerala. The trade fairs were organised in 13 districts across the state except Alappuzha by the Information and Public Relations Department, Government of Kerala during May 2018. A sale of Rs 1.24 crore was recorded from the stalls and food stalls set up at the respective district headquarters. The Kudumbashree stalls made noteworthy achievements by becoming best stalls in few districts. In Kannur, Kudumbashree bagged the award for the 'Best Stall in the Non Departmental Category' and Pathanamthitta bagged the 'Best All Round Performance Award'. 'Special prize for the Stalls' was bagged by Wayanad District and Thiruvananthapuram bagged 'Second Prize for the best performance'.

Half of the total number of stalls set up in each districts as part of the trade fair was allotted for Kudumbashree for ensuring the participation of the women entrepreneurs and to help the women get benefited out of the same. 368 stalls and 71 cafe units were alloted altogether in 13 districts.More than 200 women became part of the trade fairs. Kudumbashree had marked its brilliant presence at the events by hosting the food courts delivering unique dishes and with products made by Kudumbashree women entrepreneurs. The cafe units rendered renowned local dishes with all the essence of being at home. The collective social change and empowerment that Kudumbashree had brought about among the women was evident from the success that they had attained during the trade fair. The commercial stalls and food stalls of Kudumbashree got good responses for bringing products with purity, homeliness and quality and was wholeheartedly welcomed by the public.

The Bala Parliament organised by Kudumbashree Mission sets a noteworthy model. Dr. K.T Jaleel, Minister, Local Self Government Department, Government of Kerala inaugurated the Bala Parliament held at Old Legislative Assembly Hall on 30 May 2018. Selected 131 students from 13 districts across the state except Kozhikode took part in the programme. Bala Parliament is being conducted by Kudumbashree Mission starting from 2007 to educate the children and to make them aware and understand the democratic process and its importance.

For the first time, an open forum was arranged to discuss with the selected representatives from the government departments, that the children face in the society. Smt. Prasanna Kumari, Deputy Director, Education Department, Shri. C Rajendran IFS, Forest Department (Deputy Conservator of Forest) Shri. G. Muraleedharan Nair, Deputy Excise Commissioner, Excise Department, Shri. C.J Antony, Acting Chairperson, Child Rights Commission and Dr. K. Sandeep, Deputy Director, Family Welfare Department interacted with the Children and answered the questions of the children.

Shri. Suresh Kumar, Deputy Secretary, Centre for Parliamentary Studies lead a class on 'Why Bala Parliament' at Loyola College on 29 May 2018. Students were divided into different groups and out of them 20 students were identified roles of President, Prime Minister, Speaker, Opposition Leader and Ministers of various departments. After the Bala Parliament, the Balasabha children also visited the New Legislative Assembly Complex.

Smt. G.S Amrida, Programme Officer, Social Development, Kudumbashree Mission welcomed the gathering and Dr. K.R Shaiju, Thiruvananthapuram District Mission Coordinator extended Vote of Thanks. The prime objective of constituting Balasabhas is to prevent inter-generational transmission of poverty through capability enhancement of children. Small Learning Groups for experimental and systematic learning, opportunities for understanding democratic process, participation in conserving environment, enabling children to unfold the intricacies of collectivisation are the basic focal points of Balasabha.

Honey jack, a venture from Kothamangalam producing value added products from Jack fruit is being a big hit. A group of 5 youth from Kothamangalam municipality of Ernakulam district started an enterprise with the value addition of Jack fruit and branded the same. Launched on 1 January 2018, the unit is producing different products made out of Jack fruit and branded the product as Honey Jack. They are producing jack fruit Jam, jack fruit chips, jack fruit puttu powder, jack fruit avalosunda, jack fruit coffee powder, jack fruit chutney, jack fruit murukku, dry jack, jack fruit pickle, jack fruit pulp, ripe jack fruit vacuum fried chips etc. The unit is also making jack fruit pulps, passion fruit pulps, jack fruit juice, passion fruit juice, guava juice, mango juice, water melon juice, pineapple juice and grape juice, lime ginger squash, birds eye chilly squash, gooseberry- birds eye chilly mixed squash and nutmeg candy as well.

The team include 5 members. Jithesh P Cherian is the Chairman of the unit. Jaison Chacko, Georgekutty Peter, Anoop Manoharan and Jismon Joseph are the other members of the unit. The team wanted to launch an enterprise that was unique and has viability under NULM project. When they came to know about the NULM project, they approached the City Mission Management Unit (CMMU) and discussed their idea on value addition of Jack fruit. As a result, they attended the Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP) & skill from accredited agencies and submitted project before the task force.

Initially,the banks didn’t sanction loan for the group and later Indian Overseas Bank sanctioned Rs.10 lakhs as loan. They availed a shop on rent and started the unit. The unit participated in different food fests and Kudumbashree exhibitions which resulted in developing the brand name and able to generate more orders from outside the Urban Local Body. The unit is having an average sales of Rs 2.5 lakhs to 3.5 lakhs a month. The unit is marketing their products in 3 districts and is planning to conduct Jack fruit fest in the Urban Local Body to sensitize the various products that can be produced using Jack fruit. The unit is one of new enterprise model of the Urban Local Body. Jackfruit was designated state fruit by Government of Kerala in 2018.

Transgenders, who were considered outcast by the society till recently, is now coming to the forefront with the confidence in themselves. Nicy Chips, a first of its kind Micro Enterprise unit was launched by a group of transgenders from Aanakulam of Kannur district. Nicy Chips is the venture of Nanma NHG group. They are manufacturing and selling 5 different types of chips from banana, potato and are selling in the market. A start up fund of Rs 1 lakh was handed over to the team by Adv. A.N. Shamseer, MLA recently.

In the initial stage, the team started selling through home shops and because of the quality of the products they prepare, Nicy Chips are of high demand in the market. Even a few supermarkets have shown interest to sell Nicy Chips in their shops. Nicy Chips are also undertaking bulk orders as well. An average of 2,000 kg of Chips are sold in a month, even though the business is mainly done focusing on trade fairs inside and outside Kerala. The response they received while take part in the Trade fairs at Delhi, Maharashtra and Rajasthan are adding more confidence to them. Sandhya is the president and Sona is the Secretary of the Micro Enterprise unit. Sneha, Maya, Saumini, Aparna, Jasmine, Reema Satheeshan, Sanana and Laisa are the other members of the unit. On getting motivated from the Nicy Chips Micro enterprise unit, many more transgender groups have shown interest in launching such ventures. The team is planning to expand their venture and redesign the packing to gave their product more attractive look.