Buzz Women <> Rainmatter Foundation
**Highlights
We have completed the training for 1342 Green Motivators from 704 villages in Tumkur, Chitradurga, Ramanagara, and Chikkaballapur districts.
About our organization:
Buzz Women supports in education and inspiration. Our schools on wheels bring knowledge, skills, and tools to your doorstep. This creates the enabling environment where your transformation process starts. During our training, we, therefore, focus on 5 crucial elements that drive progress: cash, confidence, climate, care, and community.
Our objective is to enable underserved women by making knowledge, skills, and tools available at their doorsteps towards economic, social, personal, and ecological empowerment which results in the following -
CONFIDENCE - Being certain of your abilities
Women believe that their actions have an impact on their life and are confident to solve their own problems.
CLIMATE - Combating everyday effects of climate change
Women believe that the actions you have taken toward combating climate change work
COMMUNITY - Using the power of the collective
Women see themselves as a part of a collective that has the strength to solve local community problems
Key outcomes :
â—Ź Women find solutions through self-initiative
â—Ź Women take measures to mitigate climate change at the local level - Number of women who implement the information shared with them
â—Ź Women collectively solve personal problems and community problems - Number of women who are engaged in community dialogues
â—Ź Women become community leaders - Number of women who lead community problem-solving efforts
Basket of Needs - Household survey - Pilot Study
Rainmatter Foundation initiated the Basket of Needs - A household survey has been conducted in the field as a pilot study to assess the needs of the community. The survey aimed to understand the level of consumption & source of production at the village level. A survey template was designed to collect the data in consensus with the Rainmatter team. We collected 4236 responses.
Success stories:
** Gayathri village woman is inspiring reverse migration in a forlorn mining village
Kolar Gold Fields or KGF – the name was well known all over India. It was once a thriving region with an abundance of jobs, opportunities, and richness. But once the natural resource was depleted, KGF became a land of lost glory.
Gayatri lives in South Tank in Kolar. She has had a poverty-stricken life, sometimes even struggling to provide food for her family. Things started brightening up when her husband started earning as an auto driver and she went about helping the villagers get various government-related documents like income certificates and pension cards.
When Gayatri received the Self Shakti training in May 2019, her inner aspiration for a better life uncovered itself. This was the beginning of a new life for Gayathri as a community leader. Her Buzz training mates chose her as the Buzz Gelathi and she willingly took up the responsibility of inspiring change in their lives. Like every Buzz Gelathi, she underwent the Spoorthi training in February 2022, taking her one step further from personal growth towards community growth.
“What can I do for the women of my village? What can I do so that they don’t have to go to the city for jobs? Can they earn money in the village? What can we do to make my village a model village?”– Gayathri was full of questions when she met the Buzz Gelathi Facilitator, Mangala. Mangala knew questions like these from a village woman are harbingers of change. She inspired Gayathri to organize a training session in tailoring for a group of women. They could hire an external trainer for three months and the women can take up stitching jobs soon after. Since Gayathri had prior experience working in a garment factory, she could guide the women too. Gayathri took this idea one step further by saying that she will not only organize this training session but will also start a small garment unit that can employ these women.
Soon, Gayathri brought together 30 women from the village and invited a trainer to take classes. While the training sessions were underway, Gayathri started the groundwork for the garment unit. She took the help of her friend, Radhakala, and approached the Chief Rural Officer of KGF Municipal Council, Mr. Shashikumar. He advised Gayathri and Radhakala on how to apply for a garment unit license and how they could get a group business loan from the Self-Help Group, Sthree Shakthi Sangha.
One July morning of 2022, Gayathri got the news that their loan of Rs. 5 lakhs got sanctioned. Within just one month, Gayathri got everything ready - rented a house for the unit, bought power machines and raw materials, and set up the unit, calling it AGF Garments.
Seeing the enthusiasm and commitment of the women, Mr. Shashikumar from the Municipal Office extended his support by getting them their first order from a big clothing store in Kolar. Though it was a small order for 100 saree in-skirts, it was a precursor to several repeat orders and a thriving business.
Having successfully initiated a collective business and seeing its potential, Gayathri is now convinced that she should take this business model to other villages. She believes that such community businesses with help villagers earn without having to leave everything behind and migrate to the cities. She has already started the groundwork to inspire such initiatives in other villages by organizing awareness workshops – a typical example of how change never stops with one woman but touches many lives. If Gayathri can orchestrate change in an abandoned mining region, shouldn’t this be the model for growth in rural India?
Rural Woman takes small step for the environment, a small step for the pocket
“Can villagers pollute the environment? That’s the doing of city dwellers”, this was Kavitha’s thought until she attended the Buzz Green training. For this 35-year-old woman from Manighatta village of Anahalli GP, Kolar, Karnataka, the Green training was an eye opener. She realized how much damage chemicals and fertilizers used in agriculture were causing the environment. The thought that these chemicals cause imbalance in nature disturbed her.
Sitting at the Buzz Green training in May 2019, she resolved that there should be something that she can do about this. A long time ago, a friend had suggested that she could take up beekeeping to create a source of income, an idea Kavitha brushed aside. Now when she heard how bees are disappearing from the environment because of the excessive use of chemicals, cell phone towers, and modernization, Kavitha seriously considered beekeeping. She thought beekeeping could be the right initiative to earn money while saving the environment!
Kavitha went home and sought her husband’s support. The idea impressed him, but he said he had no money to offer her support. Kavitha then approached her Self-help group and requested for a loan. She also enrolled herself in beekeeping training at the horticulture department.
With support from the horticulture department and her husband, Kavitha started her beekeeping journey with 20 beekeeping benches in January 2022. Kavitha and her family collect honey once every three months and get 4-5 kgs of honey each time. They earn Rs 400-500 per kg of honey.
Standing amongst the trees next to her flower garden, these beekeeping benches are quietly improving the village environment. Kavitha’s neighbors say that the yields from flowering plants and farms have increased.
With a small step, Kavitha has created a source of income for herself and contributed to the environment. If a woman like Kavitha, who lives in a small village, doesn’t have much education, and faces financial difficulties, can be empathetic towards climate change, what’s stopping the rest of us?