School of Hope and Empowerment (S.H.E.) is a multi-media, multi-channel, multi-stakeholder impact communication initiative geared towards harnessing the power of digital connectivity and partnerships to support women from hard-to-reach geographies.
With S.H.E., Tata Communications and The Better India aim to leverage digital connectivity in order to create enabling environments that empower women to establish themselves as leaders in their communities.
In its first phase, S.H.E. has made focused efforts towards creating enabling entrepreneurial environments for women in Jharkhand between the age group of 18 to 45 years. This initiative was able to reach the target group by creating an ecosystem that was meant to empower aspiring entrepreneurs using inspirational series, educational series, mentorship, and by supporting them with business grants.
As a multi-stakeholder initiative, S.H.E. has celebrated the local efforts to empower women from the state of Jharkhand. In its first phase, S.H.E. had six project partners and in the later stage, S.H.E. onboarded new partners who showed interest in working for the same purpose. All the diverse partners represent the state and support women’s empowerment.
S.H.E. has embraced the spirit of coming together to form a stronger, more resilient, sustainable and collaborative network by including the experts from Jharkhand who has a deep understanding of the target group and has hands-on experience with rural women entrepreneurs.
In India, 320 million children have been affected by school closures caused by the Covid pandemic. While many of these children are learning online, an even larger number of them do not have access to online lessons, and yet another subsect of them may never return to a formal education system. Studies reveal that up to 20 per cent of girls may not return to school at all.
In our next phase of The School of Hope and Empowerment, we launch the Bihar Chapter, where S.H.E as a digital medium, aims to inspire young adults prone to socio-cultural barriers that prevent them from continuing in the education system. S.H.E. will work towards creating a mindset nudge by motivating young adults and their caretakers through a series of inspirational stories of women, who have accomplished their dreams, and pay special emphasis to education as an enabler.
To ensure sustenance of the engagement, enable conversation, self-initiated mentorship and more, we will create micro-communities based on interest groups. These micro-communities will be formed on two social platforms; Facebook and Whatsapp.
These communities will enable access to opportunities for young women, including but not restricted to; niche job openings, educational content, expert opinion articles/videos, call for scholarship applications and fellowship opportunities.
In its third phase, S.H.E. will target women residing in peri-urban areas of Odisha between the age group of 18 and 45 years to create enabling entrepreneurial environments using six-part inspirational video series to showcase a representative and relatable entrepreneurial journey.
If you are an organisation working to promote and support women entrepreneurship in Odisha and wish to collaborate with us, please write to us at [email protected].