We Mill - building sustainable livelihood and resilience into communities

GRAAM is incubating a social business in Belikere village of Hunsur Taluk of Mysuru district. GRAAM aims to develop and establish a social enterprise for the benefit of multiple stakeholders including rural women entrepreneurs, millet farmers, unemployed youth and end consumers. The project's operationalising included establishing a millet-based food manufacturing unit with select women entrepreneurs from Belikere village. Establishing the enterprise is expected to rejuvenate the millet cultivation in the area, which will result in healthier diets among the consumers. The multi-stakeholder collaborative project will designed to make it self-sustaining, generating additional employment in the village.

The project is significant with its partnerships. GRAAM joined hands with Wurth Elektronik, a 75-year-old multi-national company and CFTRI, Mysuru – the pioneering organization in food engineering and technology. After successfull initiation in stage one, GRAAM has been working on capacity building, a designated stage two of the project. During this phase, GRAAM is focused on building soft skills along with managerial skills among the select women entrepreneurs. Technical training of handling the processing is planned with CFTRI at their Mysuru campus.

Officials from Wurth Elektronik, CFTRI and GRAAM visited and identified project location at Belikere. They interacted with women entrepreneurs on the potential of "We Mill" as a community project for building resilience through sustained opertions. While at the village for the interaction, the team deliberated over the unit establishment plan. For marketing of the value added commodities, GRAAM has developed and registered a brand called “We Mill”, and targets a market for its products  across Karnataka and India.