We are happy to announce our partnership with Beyond Profit – A New Social Enterprise Magazine. Their mission is to bring you the most interesting and unique stories, people and ideas from the social enterprise sector. We believe this is similar to our objective and hence it made sense to join hands! The following is the first post (podcast infact ) as part of this partnership:

At Beyond Profit, we hold female social entrepreneurs close to our heart (probably because we are a team of mostly women!). Microfinance is a field in which women have long been a majority of customers, but a minority of the leaders. Praseeda Kunam is an exception, a pioneering woman who launched and runs her own microfinance institution. Praseeda left the job market after getting her MBA to start Samhita Community Development Service, which serves poor women in Madhya Pradesh, a particularly impoverished state in India.

In this podcast (link provided below), hear Praseeda speak about the challenges of being a woman entrepreneur in the financial inclusion space, the role of technology in the rapid expansion of Samhita, and the road ahead for her organization and the sector.

Praseeda was the winner of the Srijan 2008 “Most Promising Business Idea Award.” The Srijan Microfinance Forum recognizes emerging and innovative microfinance initiatives in India and serves as a platform for public debate about some of the sector’s most pressing issues.

Click here to hear Praseeda Kunam’s Interview with the Srijan Secretariat.

Srijan Website: www.intellecap.com/srijan2009

In our busy lives where our abilities are taken for granted, we forget that living along with us are challenged people who have special needs. Who could better understand the needs of the visually challenged than someone who has suffered it herself? Madhu Singhal is visually impaired by birth. Born into an upper middle class family in Haryana, Madhu had the affluence to lead a comfortable life. But she chose not to be laid back and wanted to do something on her own.

After completing her MA in Hindustani Classical Vocal Music, Madhu came down to Bangalore to undergo specialized training in communication and counseling. To her surprise and much difficulty, she found that there was very little support for her learning needs. In the North, audio recordings of text books were made available for students like her, but here in Bangalore Madhu couldn’t find any such help. Fighting this difficulty she completed her studies and got out only to find that it was extremely difficult for her to get a job. This is when Madhu decided that no one else should suffer what she suffered. And Mitra Jyothi was conceived.

Mitra Jyothi is aimed at empowering the visually impaired by supporting their educational needs, finding suitable jobs and making them independent enough to take charge of their lives. The organization’s most popular initiative is its Talking Book Library. Text books and books for general reading are given a voice by volunteers, and cassettes and CDs are recorded for circulation. Over 22,000 cassettes of more than 2000 books have been recorded till date. Mitra Jyothi set up its own recording studio to provide this service professionally. Notably, Mitra Jyothi’s effort in this front was the first of its kind in Karnataka and over 5000 people have benefited from the library.

The organization is also extensively involved in Braille transcription and providing computer education to the visually impaired. Mitra Jyothi runs a full-fledged job placement cell for its members, a service that has helped its members find suitable jobs in corporates and manufacturing units. Another admirable service is that the organization runs special courses for women to impart independent living skills.

Mitra Jyothi has been serving the needs of the visually challenged for over two decades now. It has extended its services to Kerala, Andhra and Tamil Nadu. Madhu Singhal has nurtured the organization with her selfless commitment that grew beyond her impairments.  Madhu lives independent, travels abroad on her own, spearheads an organization and chairs important positions in various social service organizations – a true role model. What she has achieved can be made possible for more visually challenged people. Help spread the cause.

Visit http://www.mitrajyothi.org/

We have all read comics when we were young. Many of us continue to read them due to their fascinating nature of conveying stories very easily.

But comics need not necessarily confine to the comedy genre. Can they be used to communicate an issue, a cause or a fact? World Comics India, led by Sharad Sharma, is doing exactly that – using the power of comics to bring about a social change!

World Comics India is a collective of cartoonists, media persons and grassroots activists. This organization makes use of comics to serve as a communication tool and as a mode of self-expression in remote areas of not only India, but many countries in South Asia.

Sharad Sharma, who leads World Comics India, is a cartoonist from Jaipur and has initiated numerous workshops where cartoons and comics are used to spread awareness. A novel idea indeed, considering that comics can easily cut across language barriers!

One of their campaigns was the Girl Child Right Campaign which aimed to address the issue of female infanticide in the region of Western Rajasthan. Here, they trained children and adults in comics making. These trained people in turn created over 300 comics focused on the girl child’s rights. World Comics India then conducted a road-based tour with all this material which was distributed to various villagers and local leaders. You can view all the comics created as part of this campaign here: Girl Child Right Campaign Comics

Similarly, they had also initiated a campaign against corporal punishment in Uttar Pradesh. Students of a school in Maharajganj used comics to spread awareness amongst teachers that punishment by beating is not really the right way to discipline children. Details of this campaign available here: Corporate Punishment campaign.

Their website is comprehensive with a lot of material available for people and organizations to make use of. For instance, the entire manual on how to go about creating these comics is available in both English and Hindi (both files are about 2 MB each).

If interested, you can download a series of videos available on their website which showcases how the various campaigns were initiated and also on how World Comics India trains people in the art of comics making! Click here to view and download all resources related to World Comics India, including a book written by Sharad Sharma and Leif Packalen titled “Grassroots Comics – A Development Communication Tool”.

For contact details, please visit their website www.WorldComicsIndia.com

Pointer to WCI provided by Sunandini Basu of Inktales