Prayatna has been working with marginalized and vulnerable communities from the time of inception, but for the first time, Prayatna is supporting and working with refugee community of Tibetans in India. With Funding support from The Tibet Fund and US Aid, Prayatna is support existing Tibetan micro-small enterprises (MSEs) in the Dehradun and Delhi areas, targeting in particular the most vulnerable MSEs with the aim to help them become more self-reliant, profitable and financially stable over a period of 2 years.
Prayatna is working with the MSEs in providing support in setting up of enterprises, providing training on soft skills, enterprise skills, branding support, and marketing inputs, backward and forward linkages, packaging, distribution, procurement of raw material, quality control, hardware and software support, financial management while providing handholding support throughout the stages of business development. The team conducts rigorous one-on-one focused discussions with each beneficiary to discuss their business plan and strategize future endeavours with respect to that. This includes organize group training sessions for target MSEs on topics including financial literacy, soft skills, business planning, marketing and branding, other aspects of enterprise development, and technical upskilling training based on MSE needs.
The team also involves a larger group of experts to bring in inputs in specific areas of their expertise to further strengthen the businesses. With other stakeholders including the donor teams, institutions like Tibetan chamber of Commerce (and the likes), and a large team of interns & volunteers, the programme is carried out with a holistic approach in mind. This allows the beneficiaries to flourish in a conducive, supportive, and nurturing atmosphere.