The Resurging Value of Civil Society for Indian Crafts
DEF is always proud to share the ever emerging success stories of SoochnaPreneur which always have a tinge of uniqueness that has a positive impact in their respective communities.
SoochnaPreneurs play a pivotal role in translating Digital Empowerment Foundation’s vision of eradicating information poverty into action in a more inclusive manner that benefits everyone participating in it. Although success stories of many SoochanPreneurs have a common thread of the improvement in their livelihood, every story also has a unique feature of affecting their communities to change in their own ways.
Mala Khatun is a SoochanPreneur from a small village of Zanza, West Bengal. She belongs to a middle-class family and her husband works as a daily wage labourer. Although Mala has always been looking for means to contribute to her family’s income, she was not able to due to lack of information. But through an active community engagement that DEF strives to maintain, she became aware about the Digital Daan program which was planned to be launched in her home district Murshidabad. She met Sufi Reza, the district coordinator of DEF, and understood more about the program.
Mala took a bold decision of running a centre in her village as it is located in a remote region which makes it very difficult for people to avail digital services. Ironically, to avail services like getting printouts, withdrawing old age, widow or PwD pension, book railways tickets, fill out scholarship form, update Aadhar card, etc., students, widows and elderly had to travel 10-12 kilometres which would again demand financial expenditure. The daily wage labourers were also losing out their wage as they had to spend a day to get their work done. Mala’s family was also among those who had to face these challenges. Therefore, she started a SoochnaPreneur centre in her village with the support of DEF under the Digital Daan program.
Following this, she took up certification courses to learn to run computers and gained a lot of knowledge. Now, she provides all kinds of digital services and is glad to be able to contribute to her family’s income. She expresses her happiness becoming self-reliant, contributing to her society and generating income out of it. She has also taken it one step ahead by starting digital literacy classes for the poor students of her village and teaches them confidently.
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