Case Study: Project Prerna
Background:
In 2012, India's urban housing shortage was estimated at nearly 19 million households, according to a report by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation. According to 2011 Census, of the 11.97 million residents of Mumbai, around 8.68 million people live in slums. These slum dwellers, though residing in urban India, have unique set of characteristics and face various challenges which are as follows:
The slum dwellers are not provided affordable housing with legal land title(possesion) hence they cannot leverage any credit facility using the house or land as acceptable collateral. They cannot pay taxes even if they want to because taxation gives them the legal status. Hence their status remains as the secondary citizens of the city.
Slums do not have basic services and provision of formal infrastructure, education, health care facilities. Majority of the slum dwellers and residents are first generation migrants from the rural areas. They possess skills that are not competent enough or do not have any significant market in the cities. They have to learn or are required to develop new skills, which require long-term investment of time and resources, which they do not have. Their only option remains is getting engaged in occupations that are unskilled and menial, and where the incomes are low(mostly laborious and shift jobs). These are also casual jobs where advantage is taken of their situation and they are cheated.
The unhealthy and polluted environment, lack of immunisation, malnutrition and absence of educational exposure affects them in slums. Sadly, their physical, emotional and intellectual growth is stunted from a very early age for children.
Women and girls in slums have a poor quality of life. On the top of it, they also they are sickened by the mindset of the importance of male child in the family and further lack interest and upbringing of the female child. The lack of basic services affects them the most. They have to spend considerable amount of time collecting potable water and maintain hygiene in the households. Having to defecate in open spaces is a health and social hazard. Looking after children who are frequently sick, husbands who do not earn adequately and can be drunk and trying to ensure that the family gets a meal every day. Women are most disadvantaged in slums.
Work Area:
Project Prerna is an initiative started by Enactus Somaiya Social cell with the aim to improve the economic and social conditions of women residing in the slums of Mumbai. To accomplish the same, the team collectively decided to launch the project in slums of central Mumbai.
The women from the target community are housewives with most of them having completed only primary education from their respective home towns. Some of them know only basic stitching skills with only a few having expertise in the same. They spend their whole day doing daily chores and looking after their kids and are left with an average of 4 free hrs in the afternoon. They would like to utilize this time to earn some money and support their families. Due to family constraints, they can only work from home.
Question:
Having understood the above case study,
Suggest, in less than 300 words, a business idea that you can think would help us work for the target community described above under Project Prerna.
Elaborate each on an end to end basis explaining the resources and capabilities required sources of revenue, major challenges that will be faced in executing it and how they can be overcome.
Also mention how it would be sustainable, scalable, revenue generating model.
(Kindly avoid writing stories. Your answers should be concise yet should not have any details left to be interpreted at our discretion)