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CASE STUDIES

Joined-up Self Help Group activities. How the community of Bythathally Village found work and dignity learning how to trust each other:

TVS motor company has been keen to help the local communities to improve their economic status. In the area around Mysore SNEHA developed a partnership with TVS to undertake community development activities in six villages. Byathahalli is one of these villages and here SNEHA has helped the women to set up SHGs and start savings and credit activities.

After receiving training in income generation activities, interested members from different SHGs joined together to start a Chapatti making enterprise to supply the workers at the TVS factory. In the community hall in the village, (constructed by TVS) the women’s groups work every morning from 8am to 12pm making and packaging chapattis.

The whole chapatti making business is performed end-to-end by a string of SHGs. One group is engaged in bulk buying the grain – and on the same trip into town they will bulk buy other commodities for the village, such as washing powder, which they then retail in smaller quantities. Another group has invested in an electric flour mill and (as this is the only mill in the village) sell the milling services to households as well. Future plans include developing an organic composting operation, which will capture methane gas from stored cow manure, to power the stove. And all this made possible by harnessing resources already in the community.