A Community Resource Efficiency (CRE) hub in North Paravur will be commissioned next week to help 25 women MSME units operating along the coastal panchayats of Ernakulam district in Kerala build a sustainable business model with built-in climate resilience.
The initiative, the first in Kerala to be funded by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) under its Smart Village project, will be executed with the support of Equinoct, a Kochi-based community-sourced modelling solution provider, and with the active collaboration with the not-for-profit organisations, the Resilient Destinations Foundation and Puthenvelikkara-based Community Resource Centre, a people’s initiative for creating a sustainable community.
A five-tonne capacity deep freezer, a 2-tonne capacity dryer, and two electric autorickshaws, all powered by solar energy, have been installed at the hub to help scale up enterprises, which are mostly into producing fish, agriculture, and dairy products. Converting them from enterprises without any definite model into sustainable ones run on green energy technologies remains at the heart of the project.
“The hub proposes to help these enterprises develop into professionally run businesses complete with a digital platform to leverage the scope of e-commerce to increase their market exposure. The entrepreneurs will be trained on maintaining accounts, tapping the benefits of bulk purchases, better branding and marketing of their products, etc. The goal is to enhance their livelihood capacity through a climate-resilient business model,” said C. Jayaraman, managing director of Equinoct.
