CORE - COMMUNITY OF RURAL ENTERPRISE
Our Vision is to inspire rural entrepreneurs to make a difference by building their eco-system of confidence, knowledge and skill set. We aspire to continue delivering innovative and meaningful learning opportunities to rural youth that will help their businesses thrive.
Did You Know?
- 70% population of India lives in villages, about 77 crores (770 million people); almost 95% of them do not have access to modern cooking fuel like LPG. These households use traditional fuels like dried animal dung and/or firewood.
- A rural family uses 8 kg of firewood during a day to cook its daily meals, thus using up to 3000 kgs of firewood in a year, which further translates into approximately 6 fully grown trees.
- According to a WHO (World Health Organization) study, in every underdeveloped country, 2 million (20 lakh) women and children under 5 years die annually due to diseases attributable to kitchen smoke. 8 lakh such deaths occur in India.
SSRDP believes in innovation and enterprise development as a strategic development intervention that could enhance the livelihoods of people at the bottom of the pyramid.
CORE (Community Of Rural Enterprise) was started with the aim of promoting rural entrepreneurs and community leaders, to develop village level infrastructure to address major issues of rural India.
Objectives
- Improve the quality of life of individuals, families and communities of rural India
- Sustain a healthy economy and environment in villages
- Mitigate the migration of rural population to cities
- Provide adequate income-generating opportunities for village youth
Offerings
Currently, we are providing trainings in the following technologies:
- Arecanut Plate Making
- Smokeless Chulhas
- Agarbatti Rolling
- Bio Gas Making
- Screen Printing
- Charcoal Briquetting
- Renewable Energy.
Success So Far
- Created 62 Clean Energy women entrepreneurs who have installed more than 7000 smokeless chulhas to address indoor air pollution
- Trained 60 Jal Sevaks to make low cost bio-sand drinking water filters
- Setup 623 SHGs across India providing skills to women for handicrafts making, tailoring, agarbathi rolling, bakery enterprise, food processing, etc.
Projects
Cook Smoklesssssss.......
Keeping these issues in mind, SSRDP has trained 78 women entrepreneurs in the Bhilai District of Chhattisgarh under its CORE initiative. The Project is in partnership with Bhilai Steel Plant where BSP & SSRDP came together to install 3000 Improvised Cook Stoves in 30 ‘Model Steel Villages’ adopted by BSP under its Corporate Social Responsibility concept in FY 2010‐2013.
This chulha tries to remove shortcomings in the design of our traditional chulhas as it uses up to 50% less firewood than traditional chulha. It is more durable - as an installed chulha it lasts upto 4 years with minimum maintenance. The Chulha is designed in such way that adequate oxygen is supplied in the burning area continuously. This results in efficient combustion, which in turn results in higher temperatures and up to 80% less smoke.
Women entrepreneurs have installed approximately 4000 chulhas in 35 villages of Chhattisgarh till date with each entrepreneur earning 125‐150 per chulhas. 27 out of the 40 women trained have now started their own units and are earning 6000 to 12000 Rs per month by selling energy efficient stoves in their community.
SSRDP started a proprietary ‘Renewable Energy Training Centre’ at the Art of Living International Centre in Bangalore on 4th December 2013, in partnership with Schneider Electric India, inaugurated by His Holiness Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The training centre was setup to deploy a unique leadership training program to unemployed youths and college dropouts on Installation, commissioning, servicing and repairing of various types of Solar PV systems like Solar Lanterns, Solar Home Systems, Solar‐Micro Grids, Solar PV Street Lights, Solar Power Plants and Solar Water Pumping Stations.
The training centre was set up in association with Schneider Electric to train youth in different forms of renewable energy like Bio Mass, Wind and Hydr, and other energy products like energy efficient smokeless cook stoves. While training youth on Renewable Energy (RE) Products, the centre also acts as a platform for individuals to learn about the different Renewable Energy products available in the market.
The training centre complements the activities of Light-a-home Project which aims at electrifying unelectrified villages with the help of Solar Energy.
Apart from Renewable Energy, the centre also provides trainings on rural based technologies like Smokeless Chulhas, Energy Efficient Stoves, Arecanut Plate Making, Charcoal Briquetting and Rural Waste Management. The whole initiative comes under CORE (Community Of Rural Enterprises) which is aimed at creating and supporting rural entrepreneurs with eco friendly and sustainable rural technologies.