India Today features our women - “Four remarkable women stand out as shining examples of grassroots entrepreneurship, community leadership, and environmental stewardship, in a world where climate action has become an urgent necessity”. We are so proud to see how our women from the villages are showing the way for sustainable entrepreneurship!
Buzz World Dialogues - A global platform to bring women entrepreneurs of all Buzz Women locations together!
Imagine women entrepreneurs from around the world coming together in solidarity to hear and learn from each other. That was precisely the essence of the first edition of Buzz World Dialogues. Representing India, The Gambia, Georgia, Tanzania, and The Netherlands two women entrepreneurs from each location shared invaluable insights.
They spoke about how they tackled challenges like limited access to resources and finances, gaining the confidence to embark on entrepreneurial journeys, the absence of robust support systems, cultural barriers, and gender inequalities. Despite diverse backgrounds, a profound sense of shared experience bound them together.
The women answered the question, “If you had a magic wand to make the world a better place, what would you do?” The Buzz women answered, “women would have more access to resources, women’s voices would be heard and hidden inequalities we experience would not exist. Our change would create ripples.”
Happy World Earth Day 2024!
While we celebrate and champion climate-action to save our earth on this day, let’s remember we experience the effects of climate-change every single day. What do we do all year round to fight climate-change? How do we address the issues of climate change that affect the most vulnerable - rural women?
At Buzz Women, we combat the everyday effects of climate-change our communities experience through our Buzz Green program. Here are 5 approaches we think are crucial for grassroots climate-action. What are your critical approaches?
Women are active agents of climate-action! Our Buzz community women show us this every single day. They are enabling forces of change for themselves, their families and their communities. We’re simply standing by them.
Here’s a snippet on how Buzz Women is addressing climate-change at the grassroots level and the action that our Buzz community women are taking to be climate resilient.
#climateaction #ruralwomen #livelihoods #womenempowerment
One of our key ingredients towards our mission of enabling women to craft their own lives is women’s leadership.
Change towards a just world is only achievable when the approach is holistic and intersectional. We believe that our community women have the answers; all they need is someone to stand by them! Keeping this in mind we began the Community Anchor programme. These anchors are now facilitating water for their villages, education for children and women, transport facilities for their villages, strengthening the Self-Help Group systems in the communities so women can experience financial freedom and so much more!
Click the link below to read about Buzz Women’s approach and journey in nurturing women’s leadership at the grassroots to facilitate the world we need. My dream is to witness these Anchors take full ownership of the Buzz Movement.
Kusuma is known for being “unstoppable”.
Her community women enthusiastically selected her to be their Community Anchor/Gelathi.
She has tripled her income post Buzz intervention.
She has enabled her son to attend competitions all the way, across the country in West Bengal.
She’s our AvalaBuzz Board Advisor.
And, she’s an incredible singer.
Kusuma truly is unstoppable!
Don’t you want to hear Kusuma’s pearls of wisdom on leadership? Click the video below!
“What do rural women leaders look like?”
“Will rural women volunteer to catalyse change?”
“What will women and communities gain from a leadership fellowship?”
“What change will these community anchors facilitate?”
Well, if you’re wondering what the answers are to any of these questions, scroll through the slides below!
“How do I live in the moment? I’m constantly scared of what’s to come.” This used to be the story of Shashikala’s life.
Post the Spoorthi (Inspiration) Fellowship, Shashikala has built for herself a support ecosystem and is enabling the same for other women in her community. Having this network she says is “freeing”!
Want to read Shashikala’s journey and learn why these solidarity systems are critical for women to thrive? Click on the link below:
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We started our Buzz Business/Vyapar program with a mission to ensure that women who choose entrepreneurship as a mode of livelihood lead sustainable lives and ultimately experience financial freedom.
But while we began our journey, we realised that to solve the multidimensional issues rural women entrepreneurs experience, our approach needed to be multidimensional too.
For Buzz, recognising the ‘self’ of this woman, enabling her to do the same and building a support system around her was and continues to be imperative.
Here’s the Buzz guide to fostering rural women entrepreneurship and the outcomes we’ve witnessed. What are some approaches you take to facilitate entrepreneurship for women?
This is Vimala from Kolar district, Karnataka. After completing the Buzz program, she’s started her own kitchen garden and rears sheep. She not only saves over Rs. 1000 per month from her garden but she says it also brings her a lot of “joy”! Not just that, she’s motivating other women too in their self-sufficiency. A true embodiment of a Green Motivator!
Here’s a video of Vimala explaining how she went about this process and how she feels managing her garden.
Buzz has collaborated with @SWMRT to develop a module called ‘Our Waste, Our Responsibility’ to strengthen our climate action curriculum and facilitate a safe and healthy living environment. The inaugural training session, conducted for 16 dedicated field staff from the Kolar district, showcased a 3-hour program featuring presentations, composting demonstrations, engaging activities, and compelling video narratives.
Last week on 21st June, the SWMRT team also built the capacities of our Buzz Field Associates from Chamrajnagara, Ramanagara and Mandya. Our team shared that they thoroughly enjoyed the session and also learnt so many new approaches to managing waste well such as composting kitchen waste the right way, and managing large amounts of waste that is at a community/village level. Our Field Associates will deliver this to our communities as part of the Buzz Green curriculum, so we can holistically enable grassroots climate action.
Very grateful for this opportunity! @AnuGovind
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Really glad to work with Buzz Women on this project. It was a pleasure to interact with the field staff in the 2 TOTs we did in May and June. They participated very enthusiastically and look forward to them doing the sessions for all the green motivators in their respective villages. Thanks to @smita.kumar from WELL Labs for connecting us with @Uthara and it has been a wonderful journey so far.
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Buzz got featured on HerStory. Here is the link to the article:
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This video features Fausta Masashua, a remarkable woman transforming her farm into a sustainable paradise, with the support from Buzz Women Tanzania Program. Fausta Masashua has grown a variety of fruit and wood trees, including avocados and lemons.
She expresses her heartfelt gratitude for being able to get a donation of tree seedlings through our program. She further asserts that the seedlings will grow into fruitful trees, which will have nutritional, environmental and livelihood benefits to her family; she clarifies that, through selling of fruits, she will have financial gains, which will potentially increase her independence.
Lastly, Fausta encourages fellow women to join Buzz women movement, as she believes that collective efforts and motivation can bring about positive transformation, leading to an empowered community, as well as ensuring for the sustainability for everyone.
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Chamrajnagara district in Karnataka reached 42°C this year in April where previously the average temperature in the month of April was a maximum of 36°C. Our field team shared with us that there were erratic weather patterns this year and we’re sure you all experienced this too. Unpredictable weather, scorching heat and random showers of rain have served as a hindrance, especially this year, with our programme delivery.
Here’s a video of Mamatha, a Buzz Field Associate at Chamrajnagara, who shares with us the multifold complexities she’s experiencing because of climate change.
Tell us how climate change has been impacting your work.
Mamata is from Chikkaballapura, and is running an electrical appliances and services shop along with her husband. She has begun managing the finances after completing her Buzz Business training in February 2023, a department of work usually kept away from women.
Her husband shares that since Mamata has joined the business, “stress has reduced.” Now, they’re exploring opportunities to start a factory!
From being apprehensive about the skills and ideas she possesses to now wanting to share them, Gangothri has come a long way. She shares, “I want women to have something of their own. I know I needed that and now I’ve found it.”
Want to know her key ingredient for this change? Click the link below!
We began the Buzz journey with the question of ‘How do you solve poverty that rural women are experiencing?’ We realised that the approach to financial literacy should be holistic and accessible. Here’s how we’re approaching financial literacy. What about you? Share in the comments below:
We started the AvalaBuzz (HerBuzz) Advisory Board in March this year to amplify the voices and choices of rural women - the most important stakeholders of Buzz. This advisory board is a step towards making us a truly grassroots organisation where the women we work for will formally participate and contribute in the decision-making, share insights from the ground, don the role of conscience keepers of the organisation’s and keep us on track to address the challenges faced by their communities. It’s a step towards our ultimate goal of being a women-led movement!
In June 2024, our advisors along with our senior leadership team met at Board member Jayamma’s house in Hoskote to review the quarter. Here’s some inputs we received from our advisors to strengthen our work!
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We asked three community women, Roopa, Sudhamanni and Pushpa, to each share one financial management skill they believe is crucial for women to know and practise. Here’s what they have to say!