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“YOU Start! NE – Enterprise Acceleration Programme for Youth Entrepreneurs – is an initiative dedicated to promoting youth entrepreneurship in North East India. It is designed & implemented by Dhriiti – The Courage Within in partnership with the Bosco Institute and is supported by Godrej Consumer Products Limited and Childaid Network. The business should be focused on or based in at least one of the states in North East India.

The program aims to equip start-up youth entrepreneurs with the skills, knowledge and confidence needed to grow their enterprises so that they can realize their ambitions, contribute to their economy and act as role models in their community.

No of Applications (Total Application Received Online) – 96
Registered (Shortlisted applicants from Telephonic Interview) – 52
Business Plan Workshop (Registered applicants attend business plan workshop) – 52
Selected for Incubation Process – 11
Winners – 3″

Ekta delivered in collaboration with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women aims to support small-scale women producers in rural Maharashtra to accelerate their businesses.

As a part of Dhriiti’s initiative to drive women entrepreneurship in the country, the project in its 1st year will reach out to 75 women producers in Pune district in Maharashtra. Through training, coaching, and business development support, the project will enable the women producers to build a vision and accelerate their growth.

The project will also work to organize individual women producers into enterprise groups to enable them to access better markets and resources. Through customized support related to market linkages, branding and packaging, financial systems and legal structures, the project will prepare the women entrepreneurs to operate in the next business orbit.

Our programme partner and strategic adviser, the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, supports women entrepreneurs in low and middle-income countries to access the skills, technology, networks and financial services they need to become successful business owners. They are driven by the vision of a world where women have equal opportunities and the capability, confidence, and capital necessary to create thriving enterprises and have a stronger voice in their societies. Ekta is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Swarovski Foundation and Hemraj Goyal Foundation.

In line with the partnership approach at Dhriiti, we are working with implementation partners locally to reach out women producers: BAIF Development Research Foundation, Centre for Aquatic Livelihood – Jaljeevika and Krushi Vikas Gramin Prashikshan Sanstha.

Types of enterprise trained and provided incubation support

Sun dried fruits and vegetables
Natural & organic food & food supplements
Herbal cosmetics and soaps
Sweet Corn and vegetables – cut & packaged
Culture fisheries

Total number of applications received: 128
Personal Interview Conducted: 113
No of women entrepreneur selected and trained: 89″

Godrej in collaboration with Dhriiti has initiated the Repurpose Project. The Repurpose project is being piloted in Mumbai in partnership with grassroots production partners. The project aims to provide livelihoods to women by repurposing old clothes and industrial waste cloth to create hand crafted utility products. Dhriiti will incubate the project to become a self-sustaining initiative.

The pilot project initiated in 2016 has been successful in providing skill enhancement training and employment to around 25 women. The project intends to design and create a range of utility products as corporate and personal gifting solutions.

WE Can India, is an enterprise development program launched by Dhriiti in partnership with Cherie Blair Foundation, supported by US Embassy. It is an initiative dedicated to promoting Women Entrepreneurship in Northern India, especially Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Dehradun and Chandigarh. The aim of this program have been to equip these enterprising women with the skills, knowledge and confidence needed to grow their businesses so that they can realise their ambitions, contribute to their economies and act as role models to others in their communities.

The journey started on January 2017 where 250+ applications received from 5 cities from following states
• Delhi
• Jaipur
• Dehradun
• Chandigarh
• Lucknow

Out of which 125 applicants registered themselves to the program and they were provided with their business workshops and training’s during month of February and March in 5 states (as mentioned above).
82 Women Entrepreneurs presented their business plan after the training’s in their business plan competition and 76 of them were selected for mentoring sessions. 76 women entrepreneurs were mentored by 22 mentors who came from a variety of expertise and thematic areas. Business plan competitions were conducted in all 5 participating cities and the 26 finalists for the program were selected. Business advisory sessions were conducted with each finalist and the design of the incubation phase was finalized.
The incubation process has been designed on the basis of the business advisory sessions which were conducted with each individual incubatee.
Rigorous incubation support was provided to the final 26 incubatees.

The final 5 incubatees were selected as winners according to their elevator pitches before the panel and their participation and responsiveness throughout the program. The winners were declared on the finale event of the WE Can India held on 06th October 2017 at the American Centre Delhi.

Impact Numbers

Impact Numbers-WE Can India

No. of Applicants

No. of WE Trained

No. of WE Incubated

Partners/Funders

Sal and Siali Leaf Plate Cluster Development project is being supported for the first year of its operation by OFSDP, Forest Department, Government of Orissa. It is a cluster development programme which looks at organizing the current leaf plate makers into a structured cluster. The project involves development of innovative product designs for the high end urban market as well as the export market. The project entails creation of a people’s institution over a period of next five years dealing in Sal and Siali Leaf Plate Manufacturing.

The project pilot has been initiated in May 2017 in two districts of Orissa. Dhriiti would be working with Sal leaf plate producers in 2 selected blocks of Keonjhar and Rourkela. The project would work with 40 such members in the designated locations. The project would be scaled to a full cluster development project in the subsequent years of operation in partnership with different public/private partners.

The Eye-Mitra EDP is being implemented with support from NVG 2.5 of the Essilor Group. The programme currently runs in the 6 states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The programme has been designed in close engagement with the NVG 2.5 sales team to strengthen the entrepreneurial competencies of the Eye-Mitra Opticians being trained by different skill development organizations. The Eye-Mitra Opticians are basically rural opticians based out of big villages providing optical solutions in the vicinity from the shop as well as by conducting Visual Screening Events (VSEs) in their region.

The programme was initiated in Jan 2015 and has been successful in training 669 EMOs across 24 city training centres in 6 states till now. The 5 day EDP component has been weaved into the Eye-Mitra technical training to enhance the entrepreneurial skills, profitability and sustainability of the EMOs. The 5 day EDP trains the participants on soft skills like negotiation, risk taking etc to functional skills like costing & pricing, selling, inventory management, book keeping etc. The participants also go through a practical understanding of the business as they conduct a VSE by themselves to learn the on-ground skills of marketing, selling and shop management.

Godrej in collaboration with Dhriiti has initiated a beauty and wellness home service platform, Salon Easy. The Salon Easy initiative being incubated by Dhriiti fill a crucial gap of availability of quality beauty and wellness home services by trained professionals.

The Salon Easy platform has been launched in 2017 and has started its operations in Mumbai. The initiative aims to build a community of Godrej trained beauty and wellness professionals across multiple locations in the country to provide beauty and wellness home service. The initiative in its pilot phase intends to create a pool of 50 such professionals and be able to provide regular work to all the professionals Involved. Godrej would look forward to expand the operations to other cities with the success of the pilot phase.

The Slum Women Entrepreneurship Development (SWED) Project has been initiated by Dhriiti and has been initially supported by the German Embassy, New Delhi. The SWED project has been designed to provide entrepreneurship training and motivation to women in urban slums trying to build an entrepreneurial venture for their livelihoods. The project currently has its operations in Delhi NCR but Dhriiti looks forward to take this programme to other urban centers across the country. The vision of the project is to empower women in slums with the tools of entrepreneurship such that they can earn their livelihood and sustain their families with respect and pride.

The project was initiated in early 2015 with slum women in the Khajuri Khas Slum area in East Delhi. The Project aims to inspire girls and women from urban slums to train their limited skills towards earning their livelihoods and increasing their employability skills. The SWED Project help develop crucial entrepreneurship skills like managing resources, negotiating, and problem-solving among other skills. Dhriiti furthers the Project by helping individual or groups of women to set up and manage enterprises. Training programs are conducted through simulated exercises, audio-visual, learning games, roleplaying, lectures, and practical implementation of the training.

The Lydia Project was initiated in partnership with SPTWD and funded by the German Embassy. The project was initiated to establish a community operated sanitary napkin manufacturing centre to enable the use of sanitary napkins with the urban poor communities.

The project was initiated in 2014 in the Kajuri Khas slum area in East Delhi. The project not only trained but also provided livelihood to 25 women from the area. The units production reached out to more than 2000 first time users of sanitary napkins in the locality. The project looked at looked at empowering women by increasing their productive days for livelihood generation.