Renu Shah: Creating Stepping Stones for Women Entrepreneurs in India

Ladderworks is a publishing startup of numerous image books with the mission to empower over 1,000,000 world wide to grow to be social entrepreneurs. Our present sequence options interviews by a personality named Spiffy, with founders engaged on the United Nations Sustainable Improvement Objectives. For December, the main focus is on SDG 5 – Gender Equality and SDG 10 – Diminished Inequalities. There’s a lot at stake, so let’s see what’s being carried out!

Namaste associates, it’s Spiffy, your interplanetary journalist with the previous couple of interviews of the yr. I’m right here in India with Renu Shah, founding father of Shakti – The Empathy Project, or STEP for brief. Renu goes to supply up her imaginative and prescient for gender fairness, and inform us how STEP is impacting 1000’s of girls entrepreneurs.

Spiffy: Renu, thanks 1,000,000 for speaking with me! I’m particularly excited so that you can inform us what problem you’re addressing.

Renu: Thanks a lot for having me, Spiffy. Properly, based on the 2020 World Economic Forum report, India stands at 149 of the 153 countries surveyed in the economic participation and opportunities for women. At STEP we try to construct a gender equitable world the place all girls entrepreneurs are empowered. Our goal is to create a supportive surroundings for women-led early stage (social) startups to assist them survive the preliminary section which is essentially the most tough a part of one’s entrepreneurial journey. Our mission is to help 1,000 such enterprises over the subsequent ten years.

Spiffy: That’s spectacular! What motivated you to sort out this situation and set this aim?

Renu: I launched into a journey of social entrepreneurship in 2007 and I nonetheless keep in mind it to be a really lonely journey. I had no mentors to information me by means of my challenges and no tribe to have a good time my wins. Quick ahead to 2018 — conversations with different girls social entrepreneurs made me notice that not a lot had modified and the information round clearly reveals that girls entrepreneurs will not be getting the help they deserve. I felt the time had come for me to do one thing about it. In 2019, I launched Shakti – The Empathy Undertaking (STEP).

Spiffy: And the way is STEP making a extra equitable world for ladies entrepreneurs?

Renu: Properly, Spiffy, the intention of STEP is to construct an eternal group of girls entrepreneurs. The six-month program focuses on 5 pillars of STEP’s ideology: 1) Making a secure house for ladies entrepreneurs for open conversations, 2) Constructing a supportive surroundings by means of mentorship, 3) Enhancing capability by means of studying classes, 4) Opening networking & funding alternatives, and 5) Position modeling by means of candid conversations with different profitable girls.

The primary STEP Cohort. (Picture courtesy of Renu Shah)

Spiffy: That’s wonderful, Renu. Are you able to inform me a few latest milestone that you’ve achieved by means of STEP?

Renu: It’s actually thrilling, Spiffy. Within the first yr of our work, we had touched 9,000 lives. Our goal for December 2020 was to the touch 50,000. However we’ve already impacted greater than 70,000 lives by mid-November! For us, that is the one milestone that actually issues.

Spiffy: That’s astounding! With this stage of success, have you ever ever encountered failure?

Renu: Really, earlier than launching STEP, we ran a small pilot challenge. The challenge began on a really excessive word and success virtually appeared assured. However inside Three months of the launch, this system misplaced its preliminary sheen and needed to be discontinued. After we mirrored on all the things, we noticed what was lacking and went again to the drafting board. The present model of STEP is an offshoot of that failure. For me, each failure has been a stepping stone to create one thing extra lovely and extra highly effective.

Spiffy: It appears like a phenomenal path is being created! You realize, Renu, I imagine you’ll be able to study from anybody. What’s one thing surprising you’ve realized from somebody lately?

Renu: In Might of 2020, the world noticed the plight of the Indian migrant staff. Everybody in my community stepped ahead to help these staff on the transfer. It was at the moment that I got here throughout Rajesh, the proprietor of a grain processing micro-unit. Despite the fact that he was barely capable of feed his circle of relatives, he supplied to promote flour, pulses, and spices at very low costs. He additionally helped my getting older dad and mom make meals packets every single day and drive with them to the freeway to distribute the packets. It was a really tough time for everybody however individuals like Rajesh confirmed the world that selfless service is the one approach to make life lovely.

Spiffy: That’s wonderful. Properly, our time is nearly up. Is there anything you’d wish to share with our viewers?

Renu: At STEP we need to change the narrative of girls being the beneficiaries to girls being the true changemakers on the planet — which they really are! For those who imagine in our work, please attain out to us and assist us make the imaginative and prescient of a gender-equitable world a actuality.

Spiffy: Let’s do it people! It’s been an honor speaking to you, Renu. All one of the best in your journey! Over and out.

Renu Shah, the founding father of Shakti — The Empathy Undertaking (STEP), is obsessed with change and believes in difficult the established order. Previous to founding STEP, Renu led Ashoka’s Changemaker Colleges Program for South Asia. She additionally based two grassroots organizations: Koseli, for slum kids in Kathmandu, Nepal, and Undertaking PEHAL, a collaborative training challenge for major public-schools in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. Renu holds a Masters of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy Faculty.

© 2020 Ladderworks LLC. Edited by Jill Landis Jha. Spiffy’s illustration by Shreyas Navare. Comply with Spiffy’s tales of founders constructing a extra equitable world at www.ladderworks.co/blogs/spiffys-blog

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the writer and don’t essentially mirror these of Nasdaq, Inc.