From now the 'Madhura Savari' by Kudumbashree Kozhikode district Mission will add more sweetness to SM street. The two six-seater buggies run by the Kudumbashree women offering a non-polluting riding experience for shoppers on SM Street is attracting many. ‘Madhura Savari’ (sweet journey), as the name signifies, is a boon for the differently-abled and the elderly looking forward to a hassle-free shopping experience on the street. The buggy ride was flagged off by Shri. U.V Jose, District Collector, Kozhikode on 26 January 2018.

A newly formed four-member entrepreneurs’ group having four-wheeler driving licence is operating the buggy ride at an affordable rate. Smt Jancy Jose, Smt. Shitha Rameshan, Smt. Sheena and Smt. K. Rajitha are the entrepreneurs who are in charge of the Buggy Ride. Only ₹10 was charged for one-side ride.

The women entrepreneurs had jointly secured a bank loan of ₹11 lakh for the venture. It is also planned to add more buggies at the end of the trial run and transgender persons will be given the opportunity to steer the wheels. People welcomed the buggy service by Kudumbashree with open hearts.The collection at the end of the short inaugural service was Rs. 2,400.

With the introduction of electronic ticketing machines, only one person would be needed to control the vehicle and the other entrepreneurs would be able to work in shifts.

Kudumbashree Mission was a prominent participant at the 'Come on Kerala', the magnificent commercial & cultural mega event organised by Gulf Madhyamam, the leading Malayalam daily in Gulf countries from 25-27 January 2018 at Sharja Expo Centre. As Keralites are the largest expatriate group in UAE and many Keralites have been named as successful business men and professionals and many have become influencing personalities in Gulf, Kudumbashree would like to facilitate the women entrepreneurs to look out for right opportunities to develop better synergy with UAE's mounting economy and to showcase their enterprises and products & services.

'Come on Kerala' provided a prospective launchpad for spreading Kudumbashree's wings to Gulf Countries. Kudumbashree was represented by Mr. Ajith Chacko, Chief Operating Officer, NRLM. He presented a session titled 'Kudumbashree - the Pride of Kerala' in the B2B meeting held on 27 January 2018 at Sharja Expo Centre and participated in the Panel Discussion titled 'Come on Kerala - beyond borders'.

Kudumbashree had signed a basic MoU with M/s Jaleel Holdings, a leading General Traders and Wholesalers in UAE for partnering towards increasing Kudumbashree women entrepreneurs' capacities to look at better product quality and design towards linking them with bigger markets such as international markets. Come on Kerala opened up doors of immense potential and possibilities for Kudumbashree Mission.

The DDU-GKY Mobile Exhibition unit  featuring 'DDU-GKY Skill training and Placements'  starts its journey  from Thiruvananthapuram. The exhibition unit is set up as part of the PN Panicker foundation 14th Eco Digital Jan Vigyaan Yatra. Shri.Pinarayi Vijayan, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Kerala flagged off the 33 day journey  at Parassala on 26 January 2018. The journey will come to an end at Kasargod on 1 March 2018.

The Mobile unit featuring the success stories of DDU-GKY will halt at 10 different locations at every districts and the public may visit it.

The concerned block co-cordinators at each location will give the details regarding the available courses in the districts. Pamphlets, notices etc on DDU-GKY course will also be distributed alongwith.

The programme would be executed in convergence with the State Panchayath Department and other governmental organisations.

Aiming at the financial and social empowerment of the Scheduled Tribes in the district, Alappuzha Kudumbashree District Mission launched Individual family Rights plan for Tribes. As a pilot study, necessary measures were initiated for the same in Alappuzha constituent assembly. The programme is launched with the support of Dr. T.M. Thomas Issac, Minister of Finance, Government of Kerala who is also the MLA of Alappuzha constituent assembly. This project mainly focus on thousands of ST families in the district. In the initial step, 141 ST families in Alappuzha constituent assembly will be benefitted out of the same. Mararikkulam North, Mararikkulam South, Mannancherry, Aryad and the residents of Avalookkunnu colony in Alappuzha Municipality constitutes the legislative assembly. The progamme will be extended to other places in the district on its successful completion.

A new venture which provides job for these ST families in Alappuzha constituent assembly is started associating with Kerala State Coir Corporation. Based on the performance at the interview conducted, 28 women from ST families have been selected and they are being undergone training programmes for a period of three months. Rs. 200 will be given to them as stipend on daily basis along with their travel allowance and food. After the successful completion of this training programme, they will be placed under Coir Corporation.

A team consisting of District Mission Co-ordinator, Kudumbashree Alappuzha District Mission, Assistant District Mission Coordinator, District Programme Manager, Scheduled Tribes Programme Officer (State Mission), UNDP Consultant, Personal Secretary to the Finance Minister and ST promoters jointly visited 141 ST families in Alappuzha constituent assembly. As the next step, a survey was conducted amongst the ST families in Alappuzha constituent assembly. After consolidating the collected data, photo documentation was made with the help of a professional photographer. After the survey, it was understood that many of the houses lacked electricity, water connection etc and some houses and some of them needed maintenance works and some was to be rebuild. A proposal costing Rs. 5 crore was prepared for the same with the help of two civil engineers.

Kudumbashree joined hands with National Institute of fashion Technology (NIFT), the education institution under the Textile Ministry, Government of India. Kudumbashree members working in textile making, design sectors may increase their proficiency out of this association.The residential training started in NIFT Kannur campus had 3 phases. The first phase was from 10-12 January 2018. The second phase will be from 29-31 January 2018 and the third phase will be from 6-9 February 2018.

Thirty women who had been working in the textile sector would be selected from across the state. Classes will be led by 2 teachers of NIFT Kannur Campus. Classes will be given on screen printing, sequence work, new designs, sewing machine maintenance etc. NIFT had given a similar training to Kudumbashree women during February 2017.

Set up in 1986, NIFT is the pioneering institute of fashion education in the country and has been in the vanguard of providing professional human resource to the textile and apparel industry. Over the years NIFT has also been working as a knowledge service provider to the Union and State governments in the area of design development and positioning of handlooms and handicrafts.

To address the mental issues faced by the school children, 'Snehitha Gender Help Desk's services will be launched in the schools at Thiruvananthapuram district. The programme will be implemented in selected schools of Thiruvananthapuram such as Govt. HSS, Madathara, Govt.HSS, Peroorkkada, Cottonhill Govt. HHSS, Vazhuthacaud, SNVHSS, Aanad, Samuel LMSHSS, Parassala, SNHSS, Uzhamalaikal, Govt. Boys HSS, Mithrammala, Govt.Girls HSS,Mithramala, Prem Nazir Memmorial HSS, Koonthalloor, and St. Mathews HSS, Pozhiyoor.

As a pilot study, the programme was implemented in Govt. Girls School, Pattom. The counselling in 3 phases had been completed here. Teachers and parents may also avail the services of Snehitha Gender help Desk. The children who won't be having basic amenities in their home may make use of the shelter homes of Snehitha Gender Help Desk during their exam times. Students may make use of the shelter homes for upto 10 days. Group wise counselling is being given to the children now and those who need special counselling would be identified through this and they would be given the same.

Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) sanctioned Rs 65 crore for extending the activities of Startup Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) to 12 more districts in Kerala. The Empowered Committee presided by the Secretary, MoRD gave approval and sanctioned fund for the project reports submitted  by Kudumbashree Mission.

SVEP, the sub component of National Rural Livelihood Mission envisions the growth of the enterprises which are launched after studying the regional scopes. Central and State governments spend money in the project in 60:40 ratio.

In Vadavukod block of Ernakulam and Parakkod block  of Pathanamthitta districts Kudumbashree had been successfully implementing the programme for the last one year. As per the approval, the programme will be implemented  in Nilambur, Koothuparamb, Panamaram, Perambra, Nilambur, Nenmara, Kodakara, Idukki block, Vaikom, Thaikkattusery, Pathanapuram and Vamanapuram blocks of  Kasaragod, Kannur, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Palakkad, Thrissur, Idukki, Kottayam, Alappuzha, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram districts respectively. Therefore, Kerala would become the first  in the country to extend the SVEP to all districts across the state.

Within 4 years, 21816 new enterprises would be started in these blocks.Kudumbashree's National Resource Organization (NRO) give the technical support  for extending the programme. As per the programme, 2000 entreprises from each block will get the loan assistance and the services of those who had received special trainings.

SVEP aims to start Block Resource Centres  to give assistance to entrepreneurs and also to those entrepreneurs which were stopped. SVEP also aims to frame  projects for the new enterprises and to launch Performance Improvement Programme as well.

For making the employees of State Mission, serve the Kudumbashree women in a better and authentic way, a renovated library was opened. The library started functioning on 1 January 2018, as Shri. S. Harikishore, Executive Director, Kudumbashree Mission inaugurated the same.

The library consists of around 3000 books which include reference books on Government of Kerala, Government of India, reference books on Kudumbashree, books on women development, on women and children's law, rural development, books on poverty, poverty eradication, micro finance/ entrepreneurs, management books, economic development, books on five year plans, solid waste management, english fiction, computer books and other books and periodicals. It also includes the published materials from the districts, newsletters, media visibility reports and CDs. State Mission employees may lend 2 books at a time for a period of 2 weeks. Smt. Sajna is the librarian, who is in charge of the same.

Weekly seminars on personality development and book discussions are organised on wednesday afternoons. Employees of State Mission consider this as a golden opportunity to share their knowledge within themselves.

The tool kit and CPC Manual of Kudumbashree NRO was released by Shri Amarjeet Sinha, Secretary, Rural Development Government of India and Dr. W R Reddy, Director General, NIRD at National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD), at Hyderabad on 12 January 2018. The tool kit has been prepared with which specifically outlines the implementation protocol that can be adopted by states interested in the PRI-CBO convergence model.

For providing the technical assistance to partner states for the PRI-CBO Convergence project and Micro enterprise consultant model, Kudumbashree, the State Poverty eradication mission of Government of Kerala has been designated as National Resource Organisation (NRO) by Ministry of Rural Development in 2012. Since its inception, Kudumbashree has had a history of working with the Panchayati Raj Institutions for partnering in the implementation of various development programmes. This model has been systematized into a project and since 2013 Kudumbashree as NRO has been working with eight states in India in the Convergence model.

The tool kit can be used by any State Rural Livelihood Missions (SRLM) to implement the model without the support of Kudumbashree NRO. It also has provisions for local-specific customization making it an extremely handy tool. The PRI-CBO convergence tool kit consists of 5 books with more than 450 pages and is a very comprehensive document covering a range of specific processes and concepts like the conceptual framework, the activity mapping, the tool that was been developed for entitlement access, the CBOs demand plan preparation, the community institutions for convergence platforms and the various capacity building modules developed for various stakeholders during the course of the project. Kudumbashree NRO had been working on the proof of concept for scaling up and universalization of the PRI-CBO convergence model across states.

The CPC Manual is prepared based on Kudumbashree NRO’s experiences and learnings. The training module could be used for building a resource pool of Community Professionals for Convergence (CPC). Community Professionals for Convergence are those internal resources of the state who will be responsible for taking the work of PRI-CBO Convergence forward in non-pilot locations. The manual will help the partner states in training Community Professionals for Convergence for their scaling up interventions.

Shri. Sumith Bose, Former Finance Secretary, Shri. J.J Mahapathra, Former Secretry, Rural Development and Shri. S.Harikishore IAS, Executive Director, Kudumbashree Mission were also present at the function.

Study report on the impact of Kudumbashree Mission done by  Dr K.P Kannan, Chairman, Laurie Baker Centre for Habitat Studies and Shri.G. Raveendran, Retd. Additional Director General, Central Statistics Organization was released. The team was directed  to conduct a study on the impact of Kudumbashree Mission. Dr. K.P. Kannan handed over the the study report to Dr.K.T Jaleel, Minister, LSGD, Government of Kerala. The report was analysed by Shri.S.M Vijayanand, Former Chief Secretary, Government of Kerala.

It was founded out in the study that Kudumbashree's interventions had influenced the social development of the women. Minister said that the future projects of Kudumbashree would be framed based on the study reports and special care would be given to the deserving sectors.

The activities regarding the detailed study was initiated during July 2015. The social and financial  development brought in by the Kudumbashree Mission among the women was the topic. Within the time frame of two years, a detailed study was conducted in 350 NHGs from the selected 60 panchayaths in the state who had been actively participating in Kudumbashree activities for the last 10 years.

The survey  was conducted by differentiating them based on their financial situations.The representation of rural, urban, scheduled caste, scheduled tribes and special NHGs were included in the survey. The study was mainly aimed at the financial and social background of the NHG women, the improvement they attained through Kudumbashree activities, personality development, social abilities and its development, impact of the social  welfare activities among them etc. The number of NHGs had  steadily increased during these years and Kudumbashree's interventions had helped in improving the quality of life of them.

As per the survey, 55 % of the Kudumbashree women are under  Below Poverty Line and 45 % are Above Poverty Line. According to the report, Kudumbashree Mission had helped tnem to come to the mainstream knowing their own rights.

Papers were presented on 'Methodology  and findings on economic impact' & 'Social impact and policy recommendations by Dr. G.Raveendran and Dr.K.P Kannan respectively.

Shri.S.Harikishore, Executive Director, Kudumbashree welcomed the gathering and Shri.Pramod, Programme Officer extended vote of thanks. Senior officials from Planning Board and Kudumbashree State Mission also attended the function.