SURE has transformed lives of several thousand rural women for the better by helping them understand the power of retail

Since then, Founder and Director of SSP, Prema Gopalan, has been involved in disaster rehabilitation projects and in building the capacities of rural women’s collectives to access and manage resources, so that they can participate in the decision-making processes that affect the location and management of resources.

SSP’s journey so far has been impressive— it has built and strengthened a network of federations linking women’s self help groups (SHGs) of more than 80,000 members to increase their access to microfinance and sustainable livelihood, health services, water and sanitation and delivery of relevant products and services in health, food and nutrition, renewable energy, etc.

Sakhi Unique Rural Enterprise (SURE) was started as a co-creation effort between SSP and BP Energy to prototype a clean fuel cook stove. Its mission is to enable sustainable community development by empowering women as leaders and entrepreneurs, through social enterprises and initiatives that offer a range of skill-building, livelihoods, agriculture and health-enhancing opportunities to rural women, youth and communities at large. An offshoot of SSP, SURE, formed in 2009, has an incredible growth story to recount. “With the objective of providing entrepreneurship to rural women, our journey has been quite challenging. We, at SURE, are dealing with many challenges including women empowerment, rural development and marketing clean green products,” says Upamanyu Patel, Team Leader, Rural Marketing and Network Programs, SURE.

SURE, which operates on the principle that change has to arise from within has transformed the lives of several thousand rural women by helping them understand the power of retail.

“Our journey started almost two decades ago post the Latur earthquake. SSP initiated rehabilitation and construction through women SHGs. It created SHGs across Maharashtra and provided masonry and community development training to SHG leaders,” Patel says. Today, SSP operates in 13 of the most disaster-prone, climate-threatened and economically challenged districts like Vidarbha in Maharashtra, and others in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Bihar.

“Over the years, the grassroots women leaders approached SSP for acquiring entrepreneurship skills as they wished to economically empower themselves to make a difference to their households and community at large,” Patel informs.

As SSP’s origin was in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Latur in Maharashtra, it provided a number of significant lessons that have since been applied to develop a model for disaster management and reconstruction across the country and abroad.

Working closely with the women at the grassroots, SSP learnt that empowering women folk and communities helped the local people recover and get back on their feet faster. When women were taught business and entrepreneurial skills, they were able to improve their livelihoods, and gained confidence and resilience.

“From 2006 to 2009, SSP’s clean fuel and advanced cook stove business impacted more than 70,000 families by reducing indoor air pollution and fuel savings of `1 crore (US$ 159464.2) month on month,” says Patel.

“By helping the women set up their own retail business dealing in energy-efficient products, not only are they made more selfsufficient, their lifestyle is also altered for the better,” says Patel.

In 2009, marketing efforts were consolidated on the multiple retailing platform, SURE. “The network and portfolio was widened to include water, energy and agriculture products that could create an impact on the health and wellbeing of over 5,00,000 consumers,” Patel explains.

Today, SURE has 15 full-time teams of 500 women entrepreneurs in eight districts in Maharashtra and Bihar. “Apart from increasing rural community income, we also create community awareness, investments, and deal with large corporate houses. While promoting clean and green products, we also promote tree plantation, focus on girls’ education, health insurance etc.,” says Patel.

“Over the years SURE has built longstanding strategic partnerships with leading companies in the sector for prototyping and producing clean and green products for the rural bottom of the pyramid (BoP) markets. We also support such companies in cutting down distribution costs and reaching the BoP market in an effective manner,” says Patel.

SURE has partnered with SSP to scale up its network model to add 1,000 women entrepreneurs in the clean and green products sector in Maharashtra and Bihar. Over the next three years SURE will partner with private sector product developers and financial institutions (FIs) to ensure ecosystem support to women entrepreneurs, while SSP will train women in networking and create public awareness on clean and green products.

The endeavour is also to constantly improve the product offering by partnering with innovative product companies. “We have partnered with leading corporates like Godrej – and prototyped Chotukool, First Energy (Erstwhile BP Energy) – Oorja Cookstoves, Biolite – Smokeless cook-stoves, etc.,” informs Patel. SURE is also planning to partner with leading organisations like First Energy and Eureka Forbes to enable micro pelletisers and water purification plants owned and operated by Sakhis (women entrepreneurs). SURE is now looking at creating clean energy hubs to be located near a central market area or municipality office where larger community footfall can be ensured.

SSP has moved steadily forward with its legion of Sakhis building, stregthening and expanding its base.