For years, poverty and financial insecurity forced many families in East Delhi’s Trilokpuri to constantly relocate within Delhi NCR in search of daily wage opportunities in construction, rickshaw pulling, and factory labour. With limited alternatives to contribute to household income, women remained financially dependent, and men’s work was often poorly paid and unpredictable. As a result, their adolescents were frequently pulled out of school to assist with household chores or care for younger siblings.
Now through a Magic Bus India Foundation initiative for encouraging entrepreneurship among women from its project communities, a cohort of 50 women have found more than just a source of income, they have discovered confidence, financial independence, and hope for a better future. The initiative for encouraging women’s entrepreneurship still being piloted, seems has broken this cycle. Women who were once unable to contribute financially are now running their own businesses, ensuring financial stability while also managing their homes and adolescents. Over the past few months, these 50 mothers have embarked on a journey of empowerment, first through intensive financial literacy and personality grooming training, then by launching their own small businesses, and now by witnessing the tangible benefits of financial independence.
Mumbai-based Magic Bus (esb 1999), a non-profit in life skills education for adolescents and livelihood programs and working across India with underserved communities launched this pilot program in 2024 with the twin objective of providing a sustainable solution to school dropouts of migrant workers and poverty alleviation. So, it engaged with the government schools, it has been already working for its adolescent and life skilling program and zeroed in on a group of students, who were not coming regularly to school and initial enquiry revealing livelihood issues of parents at home.
A group of 50 such mothers were enrolled in an intensive 3-day workshop for financial and digital literacy, problem solving, communication and building confidence. Digital tools such as UPI, Paytm, and social media for business growth were also introduced to them.
Following the training, Magic Bus facilitated ₹5 lakh in business loans, ensuring each woman received ₹10,000 to kickstart her own small venture under the PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi, a Special Micro-Credit Facility for Street vendors), a working capital loan up to `10,000 at subsidized rate of interest.
Prior skills of the were identified for helping them set up small businesses. Those who didn’t possess skills were quick skilled with were introduced to easy to do businesses such as tailoring and stitching services, tea stalls and fast-food businesses, beauty parlours and cosmetic shops, vegetable and fruit vending businesses, envelope making etc.
Kusum Devi, one of these women and a mother of three, who had never been to school learnt tailoring earlier, grabbed this opportunity and started business from her home. She has also a YouTube channel now by her name. “It was my children who encouraged me to make videos and now we have more than 200 of them on our channel,” she says in a happy tone. She earns on an average Rs 300-500 a day and her school going children are happily enjoying schooling.
Another woman from this group is Pinky, a mother of two. After her daily wager husband met with an accident and became handicapped, they were left with no means of livelihood. “We became very poor and were thinking of going back to village, but then this Magic Bus thing happened and it changed my life forever,” she says with lot of clarity. She is again into tailoring and happily supporting her family. Like wise Shaheen has scaled up her idol making business with her son, Parveen is making envelopes from old newspapers. Financial literacy and digital skills have opened possibilities for them and peering and handholding by Magic Bus is changing their world for better.
According to Rahul Kumar Rajak, Regional Operations Manager of Magic Bus India Foundation, they are yet to take an assessment of program’s impact on dropout rates and also to see how it is doing as an intervention, but on face of it, the initiative looks promising. There are still a few months left before these new owners of business have to repay the loan amount with in a year and that will be one indicator of how many crossed the bar.
But clearly this an out of box idea and its success can add an empowering chapter in India’s growth story.
