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Beautypreneurs

The COVID pandemic resulted in the shutting down of a lot of businesses and beauty salons were one of them. The extended lockdowns resulted in low to absolutely nil customer footfall. 

The beauty and personal care market is expected to touch $10 billion by 2021, growing at an annual rate of 5-6%, according to a report by the Indian Beauty & Hygiene Association. However, the majority of beauty and wellness businesses, including salons, spas, and barbershops, fall either in the small and medium enterprise or the unorganised category. This sector employs approximately seven million skill-based professionals, mostly from the weaker sections of society, according to industry estimates. Two out of three employees in the industry are women or migrant workers who have been the worst hit by the extended lockdowns.

When the lockdown was lifted, the entrepreneurs showed a desire to adapt their businesses to the new reality but did not have the resources to do so. Innovative financing in the form of a returnable grant was the solution here. Under the Salon-I program, Godrej became the mentor of these businesses and funded this particular initiative. The entrepreneurs were provided with small ticket sized grants ranging from INR 5000 to INR 20000 which was to be used as working capital to restart and build the resilience of their respective businesses. 

The entrepreneurs had only a moral obligation to repay the grant given to them with the vision that if the money comes back, it will be used to aid more such entrepreneurs in the network. A total of INR 55 lakhs has been disbursed among 472 beautypreneurs so far.

Join us in REVIVING India

The most vital factor to contain the destruction created by Covid-19 is to empower the ones dispossessed and at risk. To restore the livelihoods lost during the pandemic, we have partnered with USAID, MSDF and Omidyar Network India to launch a $6.85 million blended finance facility called REVIVE.

REVIVE will provide accessible and affordable capital in the form of grants, returnable grants and loans to previously employed or self-employed workers and at-risk nano and micro enterprises to either restart and sustain their work or find alternative business opportunities.

With REVIVE we are expecting to support 100,000 workers and enterprises with a preference given to youth and women.

I’m glad to inform you that REVIVE has already received support from corporates such as Arvind Limited, Godrej Consumer Products Limited and foundation like Brihati Foundation powered by Claris.

I would like to invite you to be a part of our goal to bring people back to a road to recovery and reignite the economy.

Better Normal – Not just a New Normal

COVID-19 and subsequent lockdowns brought on a convergence of crises across health, livelihoods, education and social justice. 

Millions of people have been pushed back below the poverty line. The impact on our unskilled and semi-skilled workers, and our nano/micro entrepreneurs has been devastating. Healthcare workers and sanitation workers continue to be at the forefront of the COVID-19 response, with little support to ensure their wellbeing and protection. 

The development sector faced its own challenges; funding to the social sector reduced substantially in 2020 and there remains high competition for a small pool of funds. 

COVID-19 didn’t create all these issues; the virus and subsequent lockdowns exacerbated and laid bare existing systemic frailties. The vulnerable have always been one crisis away from breaking point, and COVID-19 has created innumerable breaks and fractures in our society and economy.  

It is a paradox that those who are most vulnerable, also have an outsized role to play in re-invigorating our economy. India’s very economic recovery is in jeopardy if we do not shore up those who drive it. 

So we are bewildered when people talk about a new normal, an alarming word that indicates a satisfaction with the status quo. For Samhita, ‘business as usual’ was never an option in 2020, and it will not be an option as we continue the battle against COVID-19 in 2021. 

In 2021, vaccines won’t be accessible and affordable for millions for some time to come. Virus mutations may hit us and result in escalating infections and compensatory lockdowns. Our economy and society, already frail from shocks in 2020, are not yet on a clear path to recovery in 2021. 

It is time to create a Better Normal, during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond. A Better Normal where Samaaj, Sarkar and Bazaar understand that they succeed only when our most vulnerable communities survive and thrive. A Better Normal that gives hope and joy to everyone.

The aspiration for a Better Normal led us to build two platforms with bilaterals / multilaterals, companies, foundations and social organisations – REVIVE, a blended finance facility to ensure better livelihoods for 100,000 workers and micro-entrepreneurs, and India Protectors Alliance, a collaborative platform to support 500,000 healthcare and sanitation workers respond safely and effectively to the COVID-19 and other crisis. Both platforms leverage limited resources, and maximize the impact of existing systems to create impact at scale. 

It’s imperative that we band together to create this Better Normal. To begin with, I invite you to articulate what a Better Normal means and through this interaction, we want to create a collection of ideas and perspectives which will help us shape better strategies in India’s development sector, and truly achieve a Better Normal.

I would love to hear from you on how we can create a Better normal for all the people we serve. Please feel free to contact me at priya.naik@dev.samhita.org.

I also invite you to engage us on social media with the hashtag #BetterNormal.

Business responsibility and brand purpose in a better normal

The better normal re-imagines business environments where social value is an integral aspect of growth, putting stakeholders and environmental guardianship at the centre of business strategy, a strategy that evolves from inputs to outcomes, from individual to ecosystem, and from delivering services to building capacity and enabling the market.

To achieve this, we are guiding companies in evolving from compliance-driven CSR to strategic and catalytic CSR that incorporates scale, sustainability and a stakeholder focus into business strategies. We enable companies to align their core competencies with the needs of the social sector, build catalytic partnerships with stakeholders with in-depth knowledge of social issues, first-hand experience and the networks to execute substantive impact initiatives and by utilising catalytic finance tools to promote a longer-term, outcome-oriented approach for initiatives.

This approach bridges the gap between purpose and action, creating strategies that balance people, profit and planet, helping you elevate your business responsibility, and creating a better normal for the communities and environments that interact with your business.

The most vulnerable dictate the strength of our value chains

COVID-19 has exposed the weakest links in our supply chains, the largest impact of which has been felt by the poor. As we rebuild rural livelihoods, we need to innovate towards decentralisation, write Harish Hande and Jeffrey Prins in India Development Review (IDR).

While we take a fresh look at how we innovate in value chains, they need to be understood from the perspective of the most vulnerable.

Read more

Empathy and economic sense call for direct cash transfers

During a Leaders with Purpose webinar hosted by Samhita and IDFC Institute on 11 May 2020, Nobel Laureate and Director of J-PAL, Esther Duflo emphasized that direct cash transfers to the poor is both the morally correct and economically wise action required to be taken by larger society.

Ream more

The revival of the informal sector is crucial to our economy

‘It is evident that there are strong linkages between the formal and informal, as well as between large and small segments of the economy. In order to comprehend the extent and scale of these linkages, it is important to take a closer look at the labour force participation data for the Indian manufacturing sector.’

LSE’s blog article serves as an important reminder that India must make the effort to secure its supply chains, especially in the manufacturing sector.

Read more

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Nagar, Goregaon East, Mumbai,
Maharashtra 400063, IN

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