ARECANUT LEAFPLATE ENTREPRENEURS MEET

On 17th November 2009 Dhriiti had organized Arecanut Leafplate Entrepreneur Meet at TPMC godown at Barpeta Road of Barpeta district,Assam, India. The meeting was started at around 11.30 am and was finished at 3.30 pm. 12 producers, 10 members from Dhriiti and TPMC had attended the meeting.

This whole event was sponsored by Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. In the meeting last six months performance of producers was reviewed and plan for next season was discussed. Apart from that demand of 6’’ and 4’’ products at the market and the concept of dryer and energy cake was discussed. Every producer had discussed their experience on the last six month and at the end of the meeting everybody had decided to do better production in the coming season.

The products and the letter are on their way...to India!

About Entrepreneurs Alliance

Aliança Empreendedora is a Brazilian NGO that works for economic and social inclusion through the support and integration of low income microentrepreneurs, normally excluded from the market.


Since the beginning (4years ago), Aliança Empreendedora supported more than 1.500 microentrepreneurs directly in 20 cities from 4 Brazilian states (expanding to 5 more in 2010), with an increase of 56% to 319% in the microentrepreneurs monthly income.

For this work, knowledge and experience, added to the network/social capital created with partners, communities and microentrepreneurs, Aliança began to work with companies, governments and NGOs in their inclusive/social business initiatives.

To increase the impact and awareness for the entrepreneurial inclusion, Aliança Empreendedora had the support of McKinsey in 2009 for its expansion/strategic plan and had partners and acknowledgements from organizations such as Ashoka, AVINA, WalMart, UBS, Santander, Sebrae, Artemisia, among others.

Now the NGO is structured as a “holding” model (1 nonprofit and 2 social business) that provides the tools and “Accesses” that microentrepreneurs need to grow. Based on its experience, Aliança Empreendedora developed a methodology that offers “4 Accesses” simultaneously in a 360º approach.

Through this model, microentrepreneurs can increase their income and business and get access to:
1 – Knowledge/Information,
2 – Markets/Commercialization,
3 – Microcredit and
4 – Infrastructure/Technology.
With this Methodology, microentrepreneurs have the tools to overcome the main barriers and challenges they face.

Two of these “Accesses” became social business. The first one (“Access to Market”) is called “Solidarium - Fair Trade”, that integrates dispersed groups and microentrepreneurs and connect them to big national retailers such as WalMart, Lojas Renner and Tok&Stok. Furthermore, it developed an e-commerce website and catalogues that help microentrepreneurs to sell their products in a market-based approach.


The second social business was created based on “Access to Credit” area. It is the “Impulso(Boost!)– Credit to the Microentrepreneur”, which aims at facilitating and supporting microentrepreneurs, providing them microcredit/investments.

From:Call for Paper "BOP in Latin America"

Dhriiti's Initiative with Low Income Group

Congratulations! for initiating this platform. I would like to take the privileged of sharing Dhriiti’s initiative with low income group in India at this platform.

Dhriiti had initiated its first micro enterprise development project in Assam, the North-Eastern state of India in November 2004.

Dhriit after identifying the potential of the arecanut leaf plate industry in the North East in 2004, started off with its own pilot production unit at Barpeta in February 2005. The pilot unit was used by Dhriiti to learn about the whole process of producing and marketing arecanut leaf plates by direct practical experience before spreading the concept among rural producers. We built up a knowledge base on various aspects like raw material collection, production process, machinery, financial feasibility, market demand and existing dynamics of this region.

In 2005-06, the team concentrated mainly on research and development to provide solutions for all the production related problems. During this process Dhriiti changed the production technique to suit the North Eastern conditions and designed gas based machines with the help of Sandhya Engineering Concern in Howrah, so that even producers located in interior areas could manufacture the plates and benefit from the project. Along with R&D activities Dhriiti also generated awareness for this product not only amongst rural communities but also with other stakeholders like local NGOs, government departments, banks etc.

Arecanut Leaf Plate Production Machine

In 2006-07, Dhriiti established 18 units in Barpeta and Baksa districts of Assam and 1 in Tura, Meghalaya. Most of these units were financed by State Bank of India (SBI) and Assam Gramin Vikas Bank (AGVB) under Khadi Village Industries Commission’s (KVIC) Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP), which provides a 30% back end subsidy to the entrepreneurs. The pilot initiative was supported by Friends of Woman’s Word Banking (FWWB) under the USAID Innovation Fund.

One of the Arecanut Leaf Plate Production Unit

In 2007-08 Dhriiti further streamlined the production process in coordination with the existing producers and reduced the production risks by 90%. During this financial year “Tambul Plates Marketing Company” (TPMC) was also established with support from Sir Dorabjee Tata Trust (SDTT), to provide marketing support to the producers. During this year only 2 new units were promoted and more focus was laid on marketing and streamlining the production and procurement processes at the field level. Dhriiti also developed a standard training package so that it can reach out to maximum number of producers. In the last quarter of this financial year 50 new entrepreneurs were trained to set up new units. The arecanut initiative was also selected as a Rural Business Hub (RBH) by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR), Government of India and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). NABARD also supported the initiative during this year through various training programmes and Rural Innovation Fund Scheme.

Packaging & Godown Unit for Arecanut Leaf Plates

In 2008-09, another 23 units were promoted. A complete review of the arecanut programme was done during this year and a standardized process through a cluster based approach is being developed for large scale expansion of the programme.

Different countries and projects - but a lot of similarities too

This blog will be a platform to talk about the differences and similarities between low income groups, about their products and about the supporting organizations - Entrepreneurs Alliance (http://www.aliancaempreendedora.org.br/) and Dhriiti (http://www.dhriiti.org.en/) - during the Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009!

Dhriiti and Entrepreneurs Alliance members will post videos, texts and photographs about the organizations, about the supported groups and about projects that are developed in both countries.

It wills to make the contact more realistic and the whole inter-culture experience more interesting to the low income productive groups, to the viewers and to both organizations.

As we said, It would be a platform to talk about the differences and similarities between both organizations that work with Entrepreneurship in totally different places!