Rural Women Entrepreneurs Shattering Stereotypes In Villages Of India

Rural women entrepreneurs are breaking multiple barriers and changing lives at grassroots level across India. They are not only shattering the location-based stereotype that people from rural India cannot flourish but are also questioning gender bias. Women from rural areas are using the tools at their disposal to empower themselves and other women and to develop the rural economy. So in this article, we bring you rural women entrepreneurs of India whose efforts have initiated new waves and livelihoods in rural India.

Rural Women Entrepreneurs

1. Anita Devi

Anita Devi/ Picture Credit: Scroll

Anita Devi is known as the ‘Mushroom Lady of Bihar’ because she earns money by cultivating mushrooms. She started her business in 2010 to earn for her family and improve its situation. Today she owns and runs Madhopur Farmer’s Producers Company. Moreover, through mushroom cultivation, she also empowers other women in the villages. She also works with various NGOs and SHGs that aim at empowering women in several villages.

2. Gunavathy Chandrasekaran

Gunavathy Chandrasekaran/ Picture Credit: Enabled

41-year-old Gunavathy Chandrasekaran from Chinnalapatti village of Tamil Nadu monetised her skills of quilling and earned a livelihood for her family. At the age of 2, Chandrasekaran had survived a polio attack which left her with a limp and at the age of 16, she got married. But these did not deter her enthusiasm to meet a larger goal through her interest in quilling. Today she sells her quilled artwork such as greeting cards, wall art, jewelleries and more under her brand name Guna’s Quilling

3. Navalben Dalsangbhai Chaudhary

Credits: Twitter

62-year-old Navalben hails from Nagana village of Gujarat. Last year she made headlines for making a record of selling milk worth Rs 1.10 crores in a year with a profit of Rs 3.50 lakh per month. She started a milk company or a dairy at her home in 2019 providing milk to several villages. She owns 80 buffaloes and 45 cows to meet the milk demands of the company. She is also closely associated with Amul Dairy Cooperative Society where she supplies milk. 

4. Pabiben

Pabiben/Shopify.com

Pabiben runs Pabiben.com, an all-women enterprise that sells quilts, cushion coverings, packs, dhurries and more articles made by women. Hailing from the Bhadori village of Gujarat, Pabiben has employed more than 60 women in her village. She has not received formal education and spent her childhood learning traditional embroidery from her mother. Pabiben started working at a very small age to support her widowed mother. Today, she is a recipient of IMC Ladies' Wing 24th Jankidevi Bajaj Puraskar of 2016 for her contributions in developing entrepreneurship in the village. She also invented a special and personalised type of embroidery known as Hari Jari which is used by the women workers of the enterprise in making quilts and cushion covers and more. 

5. Sobita Tamuli

Sobita Tamuli / Picture Credit: ShePower

Sobita Tamuli is an entrepreneur hailing from Telana village in Assam. She runs Seuji which is an all-women self-help group that manufactures and sells organic manure. Married at the age of 18, Tamuli’s life was not different from many other women in her village, Taking care of her house and family was her primary responsibility along with taking care of the plants around her. After few years, she realised that by mixing banana plants, earthworm, khaar, dry and old leaves, cow dung and other elements, she was able to produce stronger manure. Hence, Seuji was born. She started making the organic manure with the help of other women and sell them at Rs. 50 per 5 kg packet.

Apart from this, Tamuli also makes and sells Assamese Japis, traditional conical hats. 

6. Anita Gupta

Anita Gupta/Picture: The Better India

Hailing from the Arah district of Bihar, Anita Gupta founded the Bhojpur Mahila Kala Kendra (BMKK) in 1993 when she was still in her 20s. BMKK empowers rural women by providing higher education and employment training. Gupta herself struggled to get education and employment being burdened by ">patriarchal inequalities, oppression and injustice. Her grandfather bought a girl from her parents to bear his children. Through Bhojpur Mahila Kala Kendra, she aims at providing the rights and empowerment to women that she struggled to have. 

Bhojpur Mahila Kala Kendra has trained more than 25,000 women in more than 400 skills and employed/self-employed more than 1000 women. It has also formed around 300 self-help groups in Bihar. In 2008, Anita Gupta received an award from the Government of Bihar for her work of empowering women in rural areas of the state. 

7. Godavari Satpute

Godavari Satpute/Picture Credit: Infanocare

Hailing from the Nari village of Maharashtra, Godavari Satpute runs a paper lamp manufacturing enterprise known as Godavari Akashkandil. She founded the enterprise in the year 2010. There is an interesting story behind the inception of Godavari Akashkandil. When her Satpute’s husband lost his job, her family had to suffer a huge financial crisis. One day, she saw a paper lamp being sold in a local market and thought that she can easily make and sell those. With the encouragement of her husband and relatives, Satpute began her journey to earn money by selling hand-made paper lamps.

Godavari Akashkandil empowers other women of the village too by providing employment opportunities. N 2013, it earned a revenue of Rs 30 lakhs. Godavari Satpute was honoured with the 'Woman Entrepreneur of the Year' award at Youth Business International Award in 2013.

8. Thinlas Chorol

Picture Credit: www.redrickshawrevolution.in

Thinlas Chorol is the founder of Ladakhi Women’s Travel Company (LWTC) that started as a trekking guide and became a company that educates and employs women who want to be a part of the trekking and tourism industry. Chorol is also the co-founder of Ladakhi Women’s Welfare Network (LWWN) which was honoured with Jankidevi Bajaj Puraskar in rural entrepreneurship. “While I was out trekking for them, I would meet Ladakhi women who would ask me to take them with me so they could learn the job. Since I was a freelancer, it was not up to me who could come along. I would also meet several female clients who liked having a female guide. I came to the conclusion that I could put these two groups together and make them both happy," Chorol told SheThePeople. Read the interview here.

9. Ella Bhatt

Ella Bhatt/Picture Credit: DNA India

Ella Bhatt is the founder of SEWA (Self Employed Women Association) and the former president of Textile Labour Association. Under her leadership, SEWA opened up cooperative banks that provided loans to poor women so that they can build their own businesses. Her leadership of SEWA has won her national and international recognition. SEWA also provided women with financial and business counselling. She also co-founded Women’s World Banking in 1979. WWB is a group of microfinance networks assisting poor women. 

10. Chetna Gala Sinha

Chetna Gala Sinha/ Picture Credit: ForbesIndia

Chetna Gala Sinha started India’s first rural women’s bank and first business school (‘Udiyogini Business School) for rural women entrepreneurs. Named Mann Deshi Bank and Foundation, Sinha’s enterprise has impacted the lives of 5,00,000 women and aims to reach 1 million women by 2022. Sinha has been awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar. She was also one of the six co-chairs of World Economics Forum Davos 2018. 

11. Shalu Devi

At the age of five, Shalu Devi from Punjab lost her legs due to polio. But this did not deter her from her aim to empower herself. After marriage, she started stitching basic patchwork bedsheets for Rs. 50 and teaching children who could not go to schools. Later when she received access to internet, she learnt to stitch women's salwar-suit and men's shirts. Today, she is able to get enough orders to generate a good revenue. She is also able to employ others through her earnings.

12. Mustan Kaur

When her husband walked out of the marriage, Mustan Kaur from Punjab started earning her own living by cleaning others' houses. Later, with the support of village council and friends, she started a canteen in a women's college. She used internet to learn to cook new dishes and sell them in the canteen.