Funding dreams: Micro finance session organized for SEED beneficiaries

Beneficiaries attending the session

Women Empowerment is a key component of all Mumbai Smiles activities. We firmly believe that all women have the potential for growth, provided they have access to information, adequate skills and required resources. Our SEED Project aims to empower women in the age group of 18-40 years from the marginalized section of society by imparting a set of marketable tangible skills through training in short term modular courses. We provide training to our beneficiaries in employment based courses such as Retail Sales, Advanced Computer, Front Office Receptionist and Call Centre and self-employment based courses such as Beauty Culture, Handicraft and Fast Food.

Recently, we organized a Session for our Beautician training, and Tailoring and craft center beneficiaries to give them information about Micro Finance Institutions and their funding procedure. 47 beneficiaries attended this program and Ujjivan Micro finance Institution conducted the session.The objective of this session was to provide our underprivileged beneficiaries the required information so that they can come forward, take the requisite financial support and run their own beauty parlors.

The resource person from Ujjivan, Mr. Dadasaheb Gode (customer care representative) gave introduction about the organization. He then discussed the eligibility and procedures for obtaining loans from Ujjivan such as mortgage requirements, interest rates, types of loan and facilities for members. He explained that there are 3 types of loan for which the beneficiaries can apply – Family, Individual and Education. He further described other benefits that one gets after becoming a member such as free health camps, computer trainings and spoken English classes. Participants gave a positive response and cleared all of their doubts pertaining to loan requirements. Brochures were distributed among participants and a vote of thanks was given to all the members present.

It has been decided that the beneficiaries shall obtain the required financial support in groups of 5 and the procedure will start soon.

We have conducted similar sessions in the past and hope to continue to conduct such sessions in future too for our beneficiaries. The next such session will be conducted on 26th December, 2014 for our handicraft beneficiaries.

Beneficiaries resolving their queries