The Resurging Value of Civil Society for Indian Crafts
Some villages have taken charge of ensuring the growth of the community in a sustained way after understanding their community thoroughly and working hard to address different issues with care and passion. One such village is Barabanki located in Uttar Pradesh.
Digital Empowerment Foundation started the Smartpur project in Barabanki with the support of Nokia. Smartpur team in Barabanki has worked towards renovating and constructing 10 centers which include one hub and nine spokes, and started the operation under the pillars of finance, education, governance, finance, education and health. Nokia and DEF supported the centers in terms of infrastructure, training, staff and various other expenses.
More than 165,000 community members were benefited with government schemes, education, livelihood options along with entertainment and financial services. The indirect beneficiary of the project reached around 660,000. The team was able to serve a huge number of patients at health and consultation camps, and one of the HealthPreneur centers is still serving the community with the help of e-sanjeevani. Over time, the spoke centers gained popularity and started making revenue close to 18,000-20,000 per month. Many spoke coordinators received felicitation from the district and state government for the excellent work undertaken by them under the governance and finance pillar.
To bring more growth opportunities for the community and sustain the revenue based model of Smartpur, the hub and spoke centers continue to get more projects from the funders so that the community keeps on benefitting from the various initiatives and the learning continues. SoochnaPrenuer, Digital Didi, Mera Bill, Digital Sarthak are examples of such programs being currently implemented in Barabanki.
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