Shakti rural women’s empowerment is win-win partnership for women, consumers and Indian company

Shakti (“strength”) is a women’s empowerment initiative begun in 2001 by an Indian consumer products corporation, Hindustan Lever, which is creating micro-enterprise opportunities for rural women and thereby improving their livelihoods and status and improving the standard of living in rural communities as well as benefiting the company. The program targets small villages with population of less than 2000 people.

Shakti provides critically needed additional income to poor rural women and their families, by working with self-help groups to equip and train women to become an extended arm of the company's operation. Started in 2001, Shakti now operates in about 80,000 villages in 15 states, covering about 15 million rural people, and has the support of state governments and a number of NGOs. HLL hopes that by 2010, there will be 1,000,000 Shakti entrepreneurs covering 5,000,000 villages, and touching the lives of 600 million rural people.

Shakti already includes about 25,000 women entrepreneurs who typically earn about Rs.700 -Rs.1,000 per month, double their average household income, and thus allows rural women and their families to live with dignity and in improved conditions.

Shakti grew out of HLL’s realization that rural development could be mutually beneficial to both people and the company, creating a win-win partnership and building a self-sustaining cycle of growth for all. When the model was piloted in 50 villages in Andhra Pradesh in 2000, the Government of Andhra Pradesh supported the initiative by linking it with the network of self-help women’s groups, which see Shakti as a powerful business proposition and were keen to participate.

Shakti Vani is a social communication program that covered 10,000 villages in 2004. Women, trained in health and hygiene issues, address village communities through meetings at schools, village baithaks, SHG meetings and other social fora.

iShakti, the Internet-based rural information service, provides information and services to meet rural needs in medical health and hygiene, agriculture, animal husbandry, education, vocational training and employment and women's empowerment.

HLL also is working to support girl children, who are often discriminated against in low income families, in higher education and learning skills through the Fair & Lovely Foundation, which is advised by renowned Indian women including educators, NGO activists, and physicians. The Foundation organizes career fairs, provides a career guidance program, offers scholarships specifically targeted at low income people, and vocational training for home health care nursing assistants, beauticians, and embroidery and garment design. 

Hindustan Lever Limited, India 's largest fast-moving consumer goods company, has almost 80 factories and employs 36,000 people. Its distribution network serves India’s entire urban population and about 250 million rural consumers. HLL, which is 51.55% owned by Unilever, has been actively engaged in rural development since 1976, when it began an Integrated Rural Development Program in Uttar Pradesh in tandem with the company’s dairy operations. The program, which now covers 500 villages, focuses on training farmers, animal husbandry, generating alternative income, health and hygiene and infrastructure development.

This story was compiled from information on the company’s website and on the Shakti website. 

Hindustan Lever Limited, Hindustan Lever House, 165/166, Backbay Reclamation, Mumbai–400020, Maharashtra, India.

UPDATE: By the end of 2007, there were more than 45,000 Shakti entrepreneurs covering 3 million homes in 100,000 villages in 15 states in India, and the company was rolling out similar initiatives in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. By the end of 2007, Sri Lanka had over 3,500 entrepreneurs covering 275,000 households in 4,000 villages, and Bangladesh had 4,250 entrepreneurs covering 400,000 households in 8,000 villages.

The Shakti program was profiled in June 2008 in an article entitled The Shakti Revolution: How the world's largest home-to-home operation is changing lives and stimulating economic activity in rural India, by Gavin Neath and Vijay Sharma, in Development Outreach: Putting Knowledge to Work for Development, a magazine published by the World Bank Institute. The article is part of a special report entitled Business and Poverty - opening markets to the poor. The picture of Shakti Vani public health training is a Unilever picture that accompanied the article; the other pictures come from the Shakti website.

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