Project SHIKHA works for unemployed rural women

June 20, 2007 | By | Reply More

A Bangladeshi woman staying in a rural village producing hand made bag.I am AZM Ashraf. Please allow me to take this opportunity and talk about an innovative project that my company has initiated. Project SHIKHA (The Bangla word for ‘Flame’) is a sustainable commercial distribution network of rural women customized to serve the dispersed rural households. This is a unique project initiated by Consumer Connect Communication Ltd. (CCL). It uses a unique distribution model involving three actors: reputed national/multinational FMCG manufacturers/marketers, unemployed rural women, and an initiator (social business entrepreneur; CCL in this case) willing to take up a daunting task of a door-to-door rural distribution system through rural women.

To test the concept before rolling out, a 3-month pilot project was launched by CCL on 28th in 31 villages of Shibganj thana of Bogra, a prosperous northern district of Bangladesh. CCL has established a hub office in Shibganj thana headquarter which is the base of its operation for this project. CCL collects FMCG from distributors of reputed marketers and stock them in its hub office. From there, well trained Supervisors carry the goods to the rural women – branded as SHIKHA – who purchase the stock from Supervisors on a cash basis and in turn sell them to the rural household on a door-to-door basis. One SHIKHA from each of the 31 villages were carefully selected, trained and motivated to sell Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) door-to-door in the villages.

The pilot phase has ended successfully. Attached are two case studies on this project.

Please feel free to share the case studies with anyone you think might be interested in such a project.

Sender:
AZM Ashraf
Manager, Consumer Connect Communication Ltd.
Bashati Condominium, House#15, Road#17
Flat # A (3rd & 4th), Banani C/A, Dhaka-1213
Cell: 01678116611
Website: www.consumerconnect.org
Source: Collected from Voice of South Discussion group
Photographer: Md. Arafatul Islam

Category: Rural Women

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