KUDUMBASREE- A REPLICABLE MODEL

KUDUMBASREE- A REPLICABLE MODEL

Kerala’s Kudumbasree Mission, a poverty alleviation programme through women’s empowerment, is a replicable model for the country, AndhraPradesh Speaker Nadendla Manohar has said.Mr. Manohar along with a team of Andhra Pradesh Assembly members was at the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA), Mulankunnathukavu, near the city, to understand about Kerala’s decentralised governance, the Kudumbasree Mission, and the Bala Sabhas.“Andhra Pradesh has a strong network of self-help groups. They are mostly involved in micro-financing. But Kerala’s Kudumbasree Mission has successfully branched out its activities into various fields such as agriculture, healthcare, education, environmental conservation and solid waste management,” Mr. Manohar told .The logo of the Mission ‘Reaching out to families through women and reaching out to the community through families’ itself was very interesting, he added.The Speaker was particularly impressed by the Kudumbaree initiatives such as ‘group farming in leased land,’ ‘sale of branded Nature Fresh Milk,’ and ‘Keralasree – a women’s employment exchange’.

“Sangha Krishi (group farming) in leased land, the collective struggle of women to enhance food production, is an encouraging model. The venture is a shift of the role of women from mere agricultural labourers to independent producers. In Andhra, more than 70 per cent of the farm labourers are women. Initiative like Kudumbasree can give an organised structure to these unorganised women farm workers,” he noted.Distribution of fresh milk in the brand name of ‘Nature Fresh Milk’ by Kudumbaree was also a replicable model, he said.“When the consumers have the advantage of getting fresh milk without added preservatives at their doorsteps, the Kudumbasree members will get a remunerative price as middlemen are avoided.”The high rate of participation of Kudumbasree members in the local body elections was a proof for the exposure and leadership training that the Mission has given to them.“We are also interested in the child-friendly programmes of the panchayats and Kudumbasree,” Mr. Manohar said.Later, the Speaker and his team visited Mundathikkode panchayat as part of their learning programme

Prof. John Kurakar