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Livelihood

Ensure Resilient Livelihood

Ensure resilient livelihoods for all to withstand economic shocks

Contextually appropriate solutions to generate sustainable livelihoods for the marginalized section of the society

OVERVIEW


In order to address poverty and hunger, as well as complement the National Livelihood Mission - a Government of India initiative aimed at achieving UN SDG 1 and 2 - we need to identify and address the root causes underlying these issues. This requires a focus on creating economic opportunities, providing quality education, offering job training and access to resources, and establishing social safety nets for those in need. By promoting sustainable livelihoods, we can empower individuals to become self-reliant and equipped with the necessary skills and resources to make decisions that will benefit their communities. Our approach involves conceptualizing customized livelihood-generation programs tailored to their specific needs.

We follow the Graduation Approach which is an innovative, holistic and proven approach to addressing poverty and reducing inequality. We target families living in extreme poverty, families who live on less than $1.25 (INR less than Rs. 100) a day. They are often marginalized within their communities, have no asset base or alternative sources of income, are highly vulnerable to shocks, are deserted by husbands, lacking access to govt services and our contextually customized program that could help them.

Combining targeted social assistance with technical and life skills training, financial inclusion, and coaching and mentoring, the comprehensive set of sequenced interventions throughout the program intervention to address the many challenges of poverty simultaneously, boosted livelihoods, income, and health among the target group.

“Graduation” is always context-specific and implies reaching a situation where a household has an economically viable livelihood, is food secure, and is connected to essential services.

As part of our ‘Waste to Wealth Mission – Govt. of India’ commitments, we are equipped to train women to turn natural waste into wealth, deploying a process that has been finely crafted by our team of experts and social scientists for this target audience. We cantrain women on effective solutions to turn waste into wealth by producing enriched micro bacterial compost products using cow dung, kitchen waste, water hyacinth, dry straw and banana stem. The composting technique is facile, non-hazardous and eco-friendly with very high nutrients which makes it popular among farmers. It also fetches a higher price in the market and takes less than 30 days to produce. The market is growing exponentially but the need is to form small groups for larger production with proper business training and marketing skills.

The Government has been promoting organic farming under the dedicated scheme of Parampara at Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) which encourages all kinds of chemical-free farming systems, including low cost Natural & Organic Farming. India’s 70 percent of households still depend primarily on agriculture for livelihood, and 82 percent of farmers are small and marginal. It is to this target group we bring skills related to cultivation, and marketing of natural and organic produce that ensure better income and financial stability. These in turn help alleviate poverty and bring happiness to their families. Our digital interface also makes technical information available to marginalized farmers and creates linkage with the marketplace to raise their income levels and strengthen the value chain of agricultural products.

Low carbon farming is central to long-term livelihood resilience. SM-PACT integrates carbon-sensitive practices—composting, agroforestry, cover crops and low-till methods—that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve soil health and lower input costs for small and marginal farmers.


What we do:

• Turn natural waste into enriched compost to replace synthetic fertilisers.

• Train farmer groups in regenerative practices (agroforestry, cover cropping, mixed cropping).

• Establish composting micro-enterprises and link low carbon produce to markets and digital advisory services.


Why it matters:

Low carbon farming mitigates climate risk while increasing soil fertility, reducing input expenditure, and strengthening food and income security for rural households.

The Approach

Our approach to ensure sustainable livelihood

  • Advocacy and liaison with state governments
  • Identification and selection of such women-headed families
  • Feasibility study to enhance the existing livelihood options along with new fertile non-farm & off-farm opportunities
  • Collaborate with various agencies/institutes to access financial assistance
  • Support to start small yet rewarding businesses from home and leveraging Government schemes and benefits
  • Skilling and mentoring during the setting up of the business process and scale-up successfully demand-oriented enterprises through our experts
  • Digital intervention to capture the data of the entire process and utilize them as a decision support system of the program for the major stakeholders in a transparent way.

Focus Area

We specialize in sustainable livelihoods and poverty reduction in India, offering tailored programs such as Graduation Approach for ultra-poor, waste-to-wealth training for women, and low cost organic farming for small farmers. Our approach empowers individuals and addresses multiple challenges of poverty through training, social assistance, and financial inclusion.

TargetGroup

  • Ensure sustainable livelihood for the marginalized and extremely poor women
  • Increase income of small and marginal farmers

Related Program

SM-PACT India Foundation's related programs strive to improve the lives of marginalized individuals, particularly women and children, by achieving SDG targets and creating positive social impact.