Dharma Life
Dharma Life is a social enterprise that creates women entrepreneurs at the village level and provides them with socially impactful products relevant to its causes. It trains individuals at the last mile to become Dharma Life Entrepreneurs and provides them with developmental support. Dharma Life partners with corporate and social organizations to provide a portfolio of products and services to meet the rural consumer’s needs.
Till data, the organization has trained and developed more than 5000+ entrepreneurs, one in each village, across 8 states in India. Out of these, 20% are women entrepreneurs.
In the area of female hygiene, Dharma Life works towards:
- Increasing awareness among adolescent girls and women on menstrual hygiene
- Increasing awareness on safe disposal of sanitary napkins
- Increasing adoption and use of high quality sanitary napkins among the target group
Dharma Life’s vision is to pioneer a movement where every individual earns a sustainable living, true respect and brings inclusive progress. Dharma Life develops a unique and sizeable community of social entrepreneurs by delivering training, establishing a consciousness culture, providing access to networks and products that have a social impact.
Making Periods Normal
Dharma Life is the distribution partner of Women on Wings for the Making periods Normal program. Together, Women on Wings and Dharma Life’s specific goal is to make sanitary pads available by creating a viable business model with female entrepreneurs selling and distributing sanitary pads. Dharma Life is the distribution partner of Women on Wings for the Making periods Normal program. Together, Women on Wings and Dharma Life’s specific goal is to make sanitary pads available by creating a viable business model with female entrepreneurs selling and distributing sanitary pads.
Impact
Our Reach
In 2015-2016 Women on Wings performed and evaluated a sales and distribution pilot in the district of Munger, Bihar. The most important challenge was the identification of the right villages to set up the entrepreneurial model including distribution, initial investment facilities for the entrepreneurs, pricing of the pads and collaboration with the local NGO partners.
In Munger district we have trained 185 female entrepreneurs (DLE’s) in sales & distribution out of which 165 are active.
Early 2016 we expanded the model to the district of Bhagalpur, Bihar. In Bhagalpur, we have identified 53 DLE’s, of which 18 have been trained and are active per March 2016.
The goal for 2016-2017 is to add 90 active DLE’s in Munger and reach a total of 345 DLE’s in Bhagalpur.
The focus for 2016-17 is:
- Expanding the number of DLE’s
- Improve earning model for the DLE’s
- Financial investment support for DLE’s
- Improvement of distribution system
- Further improvement of collaboration between partners: awareness raising versus business