Empowering women for sustainable development

Empowerment of women is critical for social transformation and to fast-track India's economic growth. As a conscientious corporate citizen committed to the communities it serves, the Aditya Birla Group (ABG) has championed the cause of women's transformation through empowerment.

Bringing women into the financial mainstream by equipping them with livelihood skills, market linkages, funding support, and other opportunities form the core of ABG's women empowerment initiatives. The initiatives have cumulatively benefited over 45,000 rural women across India.

Driving entrepreneurship

Gender equality and empowerment of women – part of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals – forms the bedrock of ABG's community engagement projects. Towards this goal, ABG works with women's self-help groups (SHGs) across rural India for entrepreneurship and enterprise development. The SHG members are empowered with skills such as tailoring, food production, textile-making, livestock rearing, etc. to become mini-entrepreneurs.

Hindalco, the metal flagship company of ABG, has taken large strides in this area. The company currently works with 2,000 SHGs comprising 24,860 women through programmes like SAKSHAM in Odisha and Swawlambh in Gujarat.

SAKSHAM empowers lives

A CSR initiative launched Odisha in 2015 by Hindalco, SAKSHAM supports numerous structured entrepreneurship and economic empowerment programmes such as poultry, fish cultivation, tailoring, mushroom and vegetable cultivation, and so on.

For instance, 26 women beneficiaries, part of an SHG based in Naikpada village of Odisha's Sambalpur district, earned ₹15,000 each by processing turmeric in 2020. The project's success has encouraged the members to diversify into other spices, and the ABG team is helping them procure machinery and market their spices locally.

SAKSHAM has empowered 51 women SHGs, comprising 5875 rural families, in Rengali block of Sambalpur, Odisha – an achievement for which it was awarded the India CSR Award under the women empowerment category in 2020.

Spinning livelihoods from silk

Chhattisgarh-based Kosala Social and Livelihood Foundation, a social enterprise co-conceptualised by Hindalco, enables the state's Kosa silk weavers to take their ethnic handloom products to market. Set up to mentor women in the art of making textiles including sarees from Kosa silk, the Foundation successfully generated ₹3 million in revenue over Diwali and New Year 2020-21, despite the pandemic. The enterprise, based in Gare Palma in Raigarh district, created a viable livelihood option for around 35 women silk reelers from local villages. It has also ensured that heritage handlooms like Kosa silk remain alive in the textile tradition of India.

Stitching up new opportunities

When the pandemic struck, it disrupted lives and economies with migrant workers and rural families bearing the biggest brunt. However, it also opened up an economic opportunity for the women from underprivileged backgrounds. The pandemic triggered a huge demand for face masks and other safety products which rendered new opportunities for women-led micro enterprises to make and sell these products.

Several Group companies provided assistance to SHGs in the form of training, material, facilitation of bank loans, wholesale procurement, or marketing or sales tie-ups.

Grasim-supported SHGs produced 400,000 masks in 2020 across its many plant locations. The company currently works with 390 SHGs, comprising over 5,000 women, who make an assortment of products such as masks, jute bags, uniforms and ornamental products. The initiative has helped women to earn steady income and, manage and mitigate the financial stress of the pandemic.

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. (ABFRL), the group's fashion brand, also helped SHGs in Karnataka and Odisha to pivot quickly and make over 41,000 masks, which were distributed among local communities during the pandemic.

Similar income-generation activities were facilitated by the cement major UltraTech in Chhattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh. UltraTech, which works among 8,000 rural women through 840 SHGs, set up a Women Skills Development Center in Himachal Pradesh to train members to make different types of detergents, masks and soaps. Selling these items enabled the women to earn a fixed income during the pandemic.

These COVID-19 interventions were over and above the other vocational training and other programmes conducted by ABG group companies across the country.

Back to the classroom

In tandem with its efforts to upgrade skills and provide income-generation avenues, the Group also invested efforts to impart financial literacy and entrepreneurship training for sustainable development of the women.

The group's financial services arm, Aditya Birla Capital, provided training in financial literacy to over 3,000 women in rural Karnataka through SHGs specially set up for the purpose. Similar work is being done by Hindalco.

Leveraging digital

Pushing the envelope further, UltraTech organised a Livelihood Entrepreneurship Development Programme for economically underprivileged families. Its village-level entrepreneurship programme in Chhattisgarh trains women entrepreneurs to contribute actively to India's digital transformation story.as part of a Digital Village Project.

Empowering women has positive ripple effects for families, communities, and countries, and Aditya Birla Group is ensuring that its commitment to the cause translates into strong and measurable results on the ground.