Well, the 3 months of planning and meetings and system and process setting for the much awaited CGWS Income generation Project has paid off I should say, when we kickstarted it in the first week of September 2021. Although formally delayed by a month due to Corona situation, we bounced back into work.
The Team members for CGWS adminstration and operations were identified already in June, July and training was conducted for them and plans were chartered with twice every week through online meetings and physical training.
Group Formation in villages:?
Group enquiry and group formation started in the end of July and was paused for a great deal of August and we interested people in 10 villages and they together identified what products they wanted to make according to their skill set and also product marketability and investment.
Products Manufacturing:
The products have been manufactured by the villages. We haven’t been able to give all the villages products yet, as we are still discussing what products can be moved on. Some products being manufactured are: Night dresses, Night pants, Night coats, herbal masala, Herbal oil and wheel chips.
Orders:
We have been surpirsed by some orders which we have received. The first order we received was through social media marketing on facebook, though the person was a known contact. We received an order for 17 night pants, 17 night dresses and 100 wheel chips. we received our first payment also for a check of Rs.11,000 (approximately). Though it was not a profit for us, becacuse of the material we chose for them, it was still an order, a practice, a training, a learning. It was not a loss either. we could break-even.
The second and third orders we received was from someone through a business group who is giving regular stitching of shopping bags. We have so far finished 600 bags. In this order only the labour cost is given while the material is given by the vendor. Another 2000 bags order is in pipleline, it is waiting to be given.