NEW DELHI: Rural women in the Indian State of Maharashtra, located along the west coast of India, will now have their own chamber of Commerce and Industry – exclusively for members of the weaker sex – supported in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative, an offshoot of the President Clinton Initiative (CGI) based in New York, USA formed after former US president Bill Clinton left his office. The initiative is called Mann Deshi Chamber of Commerce for Rural Women in India (MCCRW). It will help bring rural women together and support them through mentorship, knowledge and other help through monthly meetings workshops and the like. The initiative is being promoted by the Mann Deshi Mahila Bank, a bank that has been successful in helping rural women save up and later become entrepreneurs. “This chamber of commerce will help to provide rural, female micro-entrepreneurs with mentorship services, access to markets, a network of like-minded peers, advocacy tools and increased access to capital. Majority of these women are from marginalized community,” Chetana Sinha, founder chairman, Mann Deshi Mahila Bank said. The Chamber will operate from Satara town, around 350 kilometers from the state capital and India's commercial hub of Mumbai. Mann Deshi has other women's initiatives to its credit; among them is a business school especially for rural women. The business school has till date enabled more than 46,000 women to benefit from the graduation program. The women passing out of the Business School will now have the addition benefit of the services of the Chamber of Commerce to conduct their business. Their hugely successful bank business has around 155,000 women as clients.
