Tiny Miracles is a social enterprise that focuses on uplifting underprivileged communities in Mumbai by empowering women through social procurement. The organization aims to help one million people in India escape poverty by 2030 by providing work for 500 women and enabling them to become self-reliant.
However, the biggest challenge that it faces in achieving its goal is the complex and multifaceted nature of poverty in a country with a large and diverse population. Hence, it is addressing this challenge by working with multiple companies in the West and sharing its business model with others to help people break out of the poverty cycle.
In this interview with TheCSRUniverse, Ms Laurien Meuter, Founder and CEO, Tiny Miracles, discusses her mission, challenges and successes of running a social enterprise, the importance of sustainability and responsible production. She also talks about the need for innovative and collaborative approaches in the CSR industry to tackle the complexity of poverty eradication in India.
Scroll down to gather further insights.
Q. How does Tiny Miracles plan to help one million people escape poverty in India by 2030, given the complex and multifaceted nature of poverty in a country with a large and diverse population?
A. At Tiny Miracles, we work with unprivileged communities in and around Mumbai where we currently help provide work for 500 women, whose children are able to be in school because their mothers are earning a living. Via these women, we are able to make 2 million products a year which we export. In this process, we end up impacting thousands of people and we see striking results, because what we are doing is ensuring that these women don’t remain dependent on us forever – we set up systems for them that allows them to become as self-reliant as possible, in the shortest span of time. I think the beauty of what we are doing is that we employ women, and we pay them higher salaries than they may find elsewhere, which allows them to fund the education of their children, focus on healthcare and so on. For us, we look at poverty in a holistic manner – it is such a complex issue and you can’t look at it as just feeding hungry mouths. While of course addressing hunger is a crucial step towards tackling poverty, it is not enough to fully address the needs and aspirations of the community. At Tiny Miracles, we believe that the solution is based on social procurement – encouraging organizations to use their buying power to generate social value which in turn results in more financially independent communities. So far, we have worked with multiple companies in the West and created so much value for them, because they love our story and appreciate that they’re actually solving a problem via the products they purchase. I really strongly believe in the impact of this method which, according to me, is the answer to helping people break out of the poverty cycle. I also believe that Tiny Miracles should work to set the example, and share this business model with others as together, we can reach millions of people with this approach.
Q. How does Tiny Miracles work with local communities to empower them across the six dimensions of life, and what impact has this approach had so far?
A. When we begin working with a community, we delve very deep into every aspect of what the community is going through. We have developed around 150 topics that we run awareness sessions on, which range from what rights people in the community have as human beings, to why they should be saving money, sessions on mother-in-law and daughter-in-law dynamics, drug abuse, and so much more. A lot of times, these communities don’t even know that the Government has a lot of schemes designed to help them, so we educate them on those as well. We sometimes have to work to reframe the entire social fabric of a society – an example being, that many times women aren’t allowed to leave the house by their husbands, so we have to first do the groundwork to change that mindset before we can get to anything else. We work closely with our communities to empower them across six key dimensions of life: Social Awareness, Healthcare, Education, Skills Training, Life Celebration, and Employment. So far, this approach has created impact that matters – which means that we are helping people unlock their potential and allowing them to realize what they are capable of. By creating this impact that matters, members of our communities can pursue opportunities with dignity and are enabled to fully participate in society.
Q. Could you share some examples of the innovative and proven approaches that Tiny Miracles has developed over the years to help people get out and stay out of poverty?
A. We need to go deeper than just thinking that education will solve everything.We need to go in-depth, figure out what the real issues are, try to measure these, improve the approach (Get Out Phase) and then ensure these wonderful people earn enough so that they can start walking on the road towards independence (Stay Out Phase). To participate freely and with dignity in society as they wish.
The Get Out phase is a very detailed, extensive programme, tailored to different ages, different capacities. All with the purpose of getting the best out of everyone.We focus on 5 areas; healthcare, awareness, education, skills training and social fabric. Once people have passed the skills training exam, we give them a job in our social enterprise, the Stay Out phase. We believe in crafting the highest quality durable products that people actually want to buy because of the attractive design.
Our social enterprise also track their personal lives, especially the education of their children. By continuing to make products for caring customers we can keep the demand up, so they will have jobs for as long as they need to stand on their own two feet. One day, they’ll leave and get another job. And it will be a proud day for us.
By skills training these women and then giving them jobs that pay above-market wages and benefits, Tiny Miracles empowers them to live lives of dignity and purpose. We partner up with consumer brands who want to manufacture their products in a better, more ethical way, and make real, lasting, and positive impact in society. In the end, the companies themselves help create products that employees and consumers love, and at the same time these brands help create life-changing opportunities. This ‘plug-and-play’ model makes it easy for any business to take a first step and work towards solving unnecessary poverty.
Q. What are some of the biggest challenges that Tiny Miracles has faced in its mission to enable one million people to get out and stay out of poverty by 2030, and how is the organization addressing these challenges?
A. My personal challenges were of course a language barrier when I began work with the communities – in fact, at the start they thought I was trying to convert them to Christianity but nobody told me, so I had no idea what was going on! As time has progressed, I have of course learnt what these sensitivities are and adapted to them. Our biggest challenge is finding the right companies who are as invested in the idea of social procurement as we are, especially here in India. If companies are not willing to do this, they will be paying too little, less than people need to survive. Many times, people are so desperate that they will still take those jobs, however the process of becoming self-reliant will then never happen, as they won’t be able to make a stable income.
Q. How does Tiny Miracles measure its impact, and what metrics does the organization use to track progress towards its goals?
A. Measuring and understanding impact is key with everything we do and that's why we constantly trying to improve it. Prior to working with any community, we conduct a survey to collect the right information and data about the current situation of the community members. Then through the years, as we work together with the communities, we'll continue to collect the same data to understand the progress. The data covers everything around health, income, education, skills to family situations. We also monitor and report the number of sessions we hold per pillar, subjects covered andnumber of people participating in each session.As much as it's important to see the progress within these categories, it's also important to see the change in mindsets. How confidence, dreams & hopes and vision of people's lives have been built. Growing people’s awareness about the life that they can live, is at the core of our approach. It is about creating an understanding of rights and of responsibilities. It is about showing possibilities, thinking beyond current limitations. Improving self-confidence has proven to be an important change that communities go through. An empowered mindset is a capable mindset.
Q. How has Tiny Miracles been able to achieve economic sustainability while pursuing its mission of poverty alleviation, and what role do fair prices and revenue-generating products play in this model?
A. We aspire to thrive by creating a win-win-win for all involved. It’s the only way to get something done and create meaningful change. It’s called stakeholder capitalism.
We do this by: a) creating impact in the communities we work with; b) crafting that impact into a storytelling format so it can be utilized by consumer facing brands; and c) charging consumer facing brands more than typical ‘suppliers’ (because we’re not a supplier) and using that premium to create impact, thus completing this virtuous cycle. As such revenue generating products are the cornerstone of everything we do and the (more than) fair prices we charge help us sustain the business, but more importantly, the impact.
Q. What are your expectations from the CSR players in India?
A. I’m very keen to find alignment with other organizations in India that help communities like the ones we are involved with. The idea of social procurement can only be realized if multiple organizations work together to convince businesses that this is the way forward, to solve the issue of poverty. We need to address poverty from the root – look at it holistically and not just via one element, like hunger or even education. We have to work from the inside out, helping the people of these communities to change the way they think and to change what they think their limitations are.
Q. Looking ahead, what are Tiny Miracles' goals and priorities for the coming years, and how does the organization plan to achieve these goals?
A. We constantly look at our communities and see what they need. Then we act and solve. This has led to some unique features for both the Get Out (foundation) and Stay Out (social enterprise) phases.We are now looking to reach scale in communities – we are currently working with 8 communities in and around Mumbai and will be aiming to double that number by the end of next year beyond the current regions.
(To learn more and listen to her valuable insights, check out her video interview with TheCSRUniverse at https://youtu.be/xZd_-G2h-Js)
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