When she was 15, Bindu Pallichal, from a remote village in the Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala, started giving tuitions to fund her impending college education and help her family that had limited financial resources. Little did she know then that one day, with govt support, she would set up her own business — applying her subject knowledge in Sanskrit and putting a family secret in making hair oil to entrepreneurial use.
In 2007, when she joined Kudumbashree Mission, one of the world’s largest networks of women-run initiatives helmed by the govt of Kerala under its Local Self Govt Department (LSGD), Bindu’s only aim was to ensure her children didn’t grow up with a below-poverty-line tag.
Seventeen years have passed since those baby steps. Today, Bindu is a proud entrepreneur, travelling to places, delivering motivational lectures, and training women on financial independence. She started off by selling herbal oil, going from door to door and earning around Rs 20,000 a month. Now, she manufactures a range of products — from herbal oils and jams to health drinks — and boasts of a monthly income of Rs 2 lakh. There are other women, all Kudumbashree members, who are helping her in her enterprise called Ayuraj Industries Pvt Ltd.
NEVER-SAY-DIE: Bindu Pallichal with Kudumbashree members at their unit (top); Members participating in a food festival
Bindu’s isn’t the only success story, though. In the last 26 years, Kudumbashree, that celebrated its silver jubilee in 2023, has reached out to families in Kerala and empowered 45 lakh-plus women, including the poorest of the poor, by providing them with not just opportunities and finances, but also flexibility and proximity — allowing women to work at their convenient times, ensuring that their traditional role as the primary caregiver at home is never compromised.
Explaining how Kudumbashree was born, noted economist MA Oommen, who did a seminal study on the role of the Kudumbashree movement in uplifting the social status of women in Kerala in 2007, said: “Under the central govt initiative of urban basic services, women formed self-help groups in Alappuzha. The idea of a microcredit enterprise grew out of this initiative. It was soon extended to Malappuram by the Kerala govt, and it indeed captured the potential for women empowerment. In the late 1990s, when Kudumbashree was launched as a women empowerment and poverty alleviation programme in Kerala, it was a great event with no parallel anywhere else in India.”
Initiated by the State Poverty Eradication Mission (SPEM) of Kerala, Kudumbashree’s goal was to ensure community-based poverty eradication and women empowerment at the grassroots level by establishing micro-enterprises, principally led by women and ensuring they have adequate skill acquisition, financial autonomy and social mobility.
Built around three vital components — microcredit, entrepreneurship, and empowerment — with the aim of improving the standard of living of poor women, ini tially Kudumbashree combined different kinds of activities such as generating savings, providing loans to members for the purchase of assets, providing education, helping with the construction of homes, and setting up of small scale industries.
In later years, assistance was also provided with various income-generating activities such as chit funds, Onam fund, leasing arable land for paddy cultivation to the landless women members of Kudumbashree, roping them in for the ‘Clean Kerala business’, ensuring solid waste management, running ‘Janakeeya Hotels’ as part of the ‘Hunger-Free Kerala’ campaign. Along with organising self-employment programmes, members were also trained in farming, rearing goats, rabbits or quails.
“The programme gives an opportunity to every woman to tap into their potential and earn a living out of it. This has saved many families from financial distress, pulling them out of poverty,” said Rathnavalli C from Malappuram district, who makes soft toys, stuffed dolls and artificial flowers and sells them at multiple Kudumbashree outlets, at airports in Kerala and also on online platforms.
What made the programme different was that all these development initiatives were designed and implemented by women. Having ensured financial independence, members are now encouraged to actively participate in politics. Not only have Kudumbashree members voted in local self-govt elections, but many of them have even been candidates in these polls. “That nearly 17,000 Kudumbashree members fought elections and 7,071 have won is a great achievement in itself and an empowerment indicator compared to the rest of India,” Oommen said.
“We’ve never stuck to any one initiative and have continuously evolved, even adopting artificial intelligence,” said Rajeena TM, the district mission coordinator from Ernakulam.
With an eye on roping in the younger generation, several auxiliary groups have been formed. This was done after it came to light that members between 18 and 40 years of age constituted only 10% of the Kudumbashree workforce. Moreover, to ensure greater gender inclusivity, Kudumbashree has started special neighbourhood groups for transgenders to allow them an opportunity to earn a decent livelihood and lead a dignified life in society.
“It is still at a nascent stage. We are now trying to attract qualified women who have taken a career break into the group,” said Jyothi S, who is pursuing her MBA and is herself an auxiliary group member.
She said she was attracted to the group because of her mother who is an active Kudumbashree member in Ernakulam. For auxiliary group members, Kudumbashree has introduced spoken English classes, developed a website for job-seekers, especially those who have taken a career break.
For women with an entrepreneurial zeal, there are also funding options, just like the one available for Kudumbashree members.
Inspired by the way Kudumbashree is helping women, now several states in India and countries such as Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, and Liberia are trying to emulate this model. Kudumbashree is providing training to interested parties by providing valuable inputs on best practices, case studies and in-depth discussions on issues identified by the partner countries, with an eye on customistion.