In order to support women, promote equality, and give opportunities by putting women’s rights at the forefront of their missions. A Hyderabad-based women association, WEAIM( Womenergy Association of Incubators in Manufacturing) is determined in helping thousands of women to come ahead and establish their own small-scale start-ups and to be self-reliant.
This association aims to bring a change by gender-specific approach in the field of start-ups. Through this, they will be able to achieve women empowerment and break the myths of startups.
According to various agencies, the director of WEAIM, Deepthi Reddy, said “Being an entrepreneur myself, I have faced my start-up journey struggles for the initial 5 years. During that time, I have realised and observed that there is a gender-specific approach need when we talk about start-ups. And women especially have to face a lot in the initial stages for their idea to take a stand.
Further, She added, ” The association executed the idea of ‘Womenergy’ in 2015 to provide a platform for the women to gain proper strategy, funding, and mentoring for their start-ups. Also, women must have a better understanding of how to start a business and maintain it in a proper strategic way. Sharing this idea, we have formed a group of 40 to 50 women back then and now we are an association for about 3,000 to 4,000 women.”
Deepthi also mentioned that “With this association, we are able to influence and change home-making women into entrepreneurs. There are women who are able to make a living out of their ideas. We are able to influence women and turn them into marginal scale business persons. This was to bring not just economic but also social and ecological awareness among women. Through this association, we are able to break the myth that start-ups are only related to technology. We have made various women who are homemakers to come forward and create a very sustainable ecosystem.”
“Nearly half of the population of India are women and our contribution to National Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is less than 17 percent, so we aimed to change this and we have come up with this association exclusively for women manufacturers,” she said.
“Lot of women have various ideas and want to make things at home, so we try to provide them with a platform for them. So when these small ideas are given support, they become large setups in coming days,” she added.
Deepthi’s aim is to bring at least one lakh women entrepreneurs to come forward and set up their own business.
Hence, Empowering women to participate fully in economic life across all sectors is essential to building stronger economies, achieve internationally agreed goals for development and sustainability, and improve the quality of life for women, men, families, and communities.
