Dec 6th, Nadukuppam, Marakkanam block, Villupuram District: had a half day workshop with the amazingly dedicated village women entrepreneurs in Nadukuppam village today. these are the women group who have created and manage the amazing "AMRUTHA" brand of village herbal products including my favourite companion these days, a headache relief balm!!
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| meeting with AMRUTHA group women along with Arnab |
this group of women have over the last year created this amazing brand with encouragement and facilitation from the Pitchandikulam team and SEDAB project that was created with the vision of evolving several socially relevant and local resource based enterprises in the village of the bio-region around Auroville. we discussed techniques of marketing and learning from prior marketing insights and knowledge to do current marketing better. these women have already 'walked' to 100 villages around to market their products thereby creating an unique rural marketing model that is more on the traditional lines and based on building strong relationships with the customers and retailers. i see much potential in this approach and model in re-building a vibrant rural economic activity in this region.
it was also good to have a long chat with Arnab, the founder of Ninad, an unique venture that deepens dialogues on human actions. we had spent the previous evening and much of the night discussing common interests while staying in the community forest developed in the village.
also present during our discussion were students from XIMB, RLLE programme who have been staying in the village and doing some interesting documentation.
in January 2014, intend to have a 3 day comprehensive workshop for these women in tamil (along with anyone else interested) on 'rural marketing' at Nadukuppam village.
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