Godrej Consumer Products joins hands with NGO Dhriiti to uncover impactful stories of slum-dwelling ‘beauty and nanopreneurs’ at the launch of a book, ‘Unblemished’
Uncovers impactful stories of 21 women beauty entrepreneurs from across Delhi(NCR) Marks success of business accelerator program ‘Beautypreneur’
New Delhi, April 12th, 2022, Tuesday: Endeavouring to promote and protect entrepreneurship and build the next generation of entrepreneurs via its projects, training, mentoring and accelerator programs, social enterprise, Dhriiti – The Courage Within (https://dhriiti.com/ founded in the year 2004) announces the launch of book ‘Unblemished’, in the capital today, during an online event. Supported by its corporate partner Godrej Consumer Products Limited, the launch also marks the success of the organizations’ ongoing business accelerator program ‘Beautypreneur’ which is now its 8th year in running (started in the year 2015-16) and trained over 4,500 women helping them earn over Rs. 4 crores in revenue.
‘Unblemished’ is a coffee table book with a collection of short formal, inspirational,, and heart-warming stories, real-life challenges, struggles, and journeys covered by 21 indomitable spirited women: Ashwinder, Fatima, Qaisar, Sadhna Jagdish, Seeta, R Rachna, Veena, Manjulata, Rajesh Tomar, Archana, Gudia, Manju Chaudhary, Meena Kishore, Radha, Rukhmini, Bhawani Devi, Meena Gupta, Noori, Sapna Mishra, Babli Saxena, and Poonam. As they have beaten the odds to script their own success in a profession, that was not necessarily of their choosing.
Scuffing their way up, mostly in chase of their dreams, these beautypreneurs have dared, aspired, and relentlessly worked to live and earn a respectable life on their own terms. Sometimes for self-confidence, for children’s education, better living, desire to interact with new people, sometimes to negotiate for herself, while mostly to just put together two square meals for their families, they have broken many #bias, challenged many taboos, societal pressures, abusive marriages, dealing with personal loss, adding to family’s income, to find their true purpose and calling and sometimes to just mask up to their own emotional scars and redefine the meaning of beauty.
Commenting on the Beautypreneur program’s success with Dhriiti; Gayatri Divecha, Head – CSR & Sustainability, Godrej Industries Limited, and Associate Companies, says “With the Beautypreneur program, we set out to provide beauty skills that empower women across India. This program has been designed to instill the technical and entrepreneurship competencies to enable women to earn and enhance livelihoods, create an identity, and find their unique voice. More than the data, it’s these women’s stories that demonstrate the transformative impact of the program. We’ve seen women who were once too shy to speak that have now gained the confidence to start and run a successful enterprise. We hope these stories encourage more women to forge their path.”.”
Indian cosmetics industry has swelled by 60% in the last five years (according to a recent survey finding by a leading lifestyle magazine). This has led to a burgeoning increase of 35% in the parlor or salon industry too. Attracting customers across the age groups and gender, the beauty and salon business is on an unbound growth trajectory in India and is set to compete parallelly with US and European markets.
Beautypreneur supports small-scale women-led beauty enterprises The aim of the program is to enable nano beauty entrepreneurs to strengthen their businesses by improving their revenue, bridging the knowledge gap of business and financial management, and enhancing their self-perception.
The program creates a safe space for women to network, share, and learn. Building on technical and business management competencies, the program also works on developing an entrepreneurial mindset and competencies which help the women, especially from the slum-dwelling pockets of Delhi and NCR; so as to sustain their businesses over a longer period of time. Since its inception, the project has engaged with 650+ women entrepreneurs in Delhi (NCR), intensively trained and mentored 250+ women entrepreneurs from low-income neighborhoods of Delhi including Sangam Vihar, Molarband, Jaitpur, Uttam Nagar, Shahdara, etc.
These women entrepreneurs have further employed around 300 women in their businesses and trained around 4500 girls and women to enhance the overall employability of their communities. As a cohort, these women-led businesses have earned Rs. 4crore+ in revenues. The program has impacted their social well-being too including enhanced confidence, awareness about rights and legal issues, increased mobility, etc.
Exhilarated at the book launch and success of the accelerator program, Ms. Nidhi Gupta, Executive Director, Dhriiti – The Courage Within, says “The project has been a personal learning experience for me. It has taught me that when a woman owns and runs a beauty salon, she is not merely delivering a service for money. Rather she is creating a space that gives her a new identity, gives her the power to negotiate with herself and the world, and gives meaning to her dreams. During the pandemic, it was the safety and pride of this space that they missed the most, even more than the money they lost.”
Most Beautypreneurs come from economically and socially challenging backgrounds thus giving them limited opportunities for honing their business and technical skills, accessing the latest industry trends and information, and forming business networks. Their ability to operate effectively as business owners and entrepreneurs is further weakened by their low self-perception, limited mobility, and inability to negotiate. The Beautypreneur Program through a multi-pronged approach of skill development, perception building, mentoring, and community building, enables the women entrepreneurs to strengthen their financial status, break out of existing social identities and understand agency in life and business.
About Dhriiti
The Courage Within https://dhriiti.com/: Founded in the year 2004, Dhriiti is an NGO (social enterprise) registered under the Societies Act of 1860. Anirban Gupta (XIMB), Nidhi Arora (XIMB), and Arindam Dasgupta (IRMA) are the three co-founders of Dhriiti. The organization is an endeavor to promote and protect entrepreneurship in its different forms and to build and create a spirit of entrepreneurship amongst the next generation of Indians. Inspiring and building entrepreneurs who identify and convert opportunities into sustainable enterprises to enhance access (security) and quality (passion + potential) of livelihood.
Dhriiti seeds, nurtures, incubates, and supports potential entrepreneurs through an innovative and professional approach. The organization’s approach to building an eco-system of self-employment, self-reliability ‘Atmanirbharta’, and entrepreneurship has been its answer to the growing concern of unemployment and underemployment in the country for the last 18 years.
The three core propositions on which rests the success of all its programs are inspiring, incubating, and transforming. Working with young adults from across socio-economic backgrounds, Dhriiti’s commitment is to develop entrepreneurial skills and provide an eco-system to emerging entrepreneurs and their small enterprises, by developing the complete value chain allows small and micro enterprises to further thrust towards growing and accelerating. Spread over 21 + states across the country, Dhriiti has incubated 200+ micro-enterprises, transformed 80+ communities, trained 10,000 + individuals, and impacted the livelihood of over 100,000+ individuals.
Some key work highlights of Dhriiti include – Arecanut leaf plate manufacturing (The year 2004); Bamboo Mat Collective (the Year 2009); We Can – In partnership with U.S. Embassy India. Her&Now (on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and in partnership with the Indian Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MoSDE), as one of the partners of the project, is implementing the project in the Northeast Region (NER) of India with the objective of equipping women micro-entrepreneurs to set up and scale up their enterprises leading to economic empowerment resulting in an increased sense of agency in their lives.
In collaboration with Interglobe Foundation, launched Project Pragati in 2018 envisioning a strong women-led ecosystem in the Arecanut Plate Making Business. The project currently operates in the Choygaon- Boko area of South Kamrup district in Assam.
We Talk! – A dedicated toll-free helpline for women entrepreneurs of North East Region India. In collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Project Her&Now, Let’s TALK, and Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), Dhriiti- The Courage Within launched “We Talk”, a toll-free helpline to provide business-related and mental health well-being support to women entrepreneurs from North East Region.
The helpline is operated from Monday to Friday from 9:30 a.m to 6:00 p.m. by dedicated resources from each state of North East and with support language in Assamese, English, Hindi, Kuki, Nagamese, Meitei, and Zomi. Beautypreneur in collaboration with Godrej Consumer Products Limited
About Godrej Consumer Products Limited:
Godrej Consumer Products is a part of the over 124-year-young Godrej Group. We are fortunate to have a proud legacy built on the strong values of trust, integrity, and respect for others. As an emerging market company, we have witnessed rapid growth and are pursuing our exciting and innovative aspirations.
Today, our Group enjoys the patronage of 1.15 billion consumers globally, across different businesses. We rank among the largest Household Insecticide and Hair Care players in emerging markets. In Household Insecticides, we are the leader in India, the second-largest player in Indonesia, and are expanding our footprint in Africa.
We are the leader in serving the Hair Care needs of women of African descent, the number one player in Hair Colour in India and Sub-Saharan Africa, and among the leading players in Latin America. We rank number two in soaps in India and are the number one player in Air Fresheners and Wet Tissues in Indonesia.
But for us, it is very important that besides our strong financial performance and innovative, much-loved products, we remain a good company. Approximately 23% of the promoter holding in the Godrej Group is held in trusts that invest in the environment, health, and education.
We are also bringing together our passion and purpose to make a difference through our Good & Green approach to build a more inclusive and greener India.
At the heart of it all is our talented team. We take much pride in fostering an inspiring workplace with an agile and high-performance culture. We are also deeply committed to recognizing and valuing diversity across our teams.
