Did You know? 

30 of them mothers are in need of your support

Would you like to empower these women?

This Mother’s Day, honour your mom by supporting a Rang De Mom. Make an investment of Rs.1000 and above in a Rang De borrower and gift your mom a beautiful Mother’s Day Greeting Card with a personal message from you! 

This does not end here. You get back your money by the next Mother’s Day! What are you waiting for?

Support a Mom Now!

 

My association with Rang De started in October 2010 when I met Ram (Rang De Co-Founder and CEO) at an entrepreneurship summit in Bangalore where Ram was one of the speakers. In his session, he spoke about Rang De and the work Rang De Chapters were doing in India and abroad. After his session, I discussed with him about starting a chapter at Symbiosis Institute of Operations Management, Nashik where I was studying at that point. 

Around the same time, I was selected for the Tata Jagriti Yatra (a 2-week train journey of 450 youngsters across India with a mission to promote social entrepreneurship). The Yatra and my interactions with Ram and Smita finally culminated in the launch of Rang De Symbiosis Nashik Chapter in February 2011. The first activity of our Chapter was an awareness kiosk of Rang De at a seminar of ‘Mumbai Dabbawalas’ organized by Rotary Club of Nashik in March 2011 where Rang De’s impact was appreciated by the Mumbai Dabbawalas team. After that, we organised a field trip with the Mumbai Chapter to Surendranagar, Gujarat. We conducted audits of 25 Rang De borrowers with the field partner Prayas. It was a humbling experience as I understood the aspirations of rural women entrepreneurs and how hard they work to improve their standard of living. The last activity that I was a part of with the Nashik Chapter was a seminar by Mr. Anshu Gupta of GOONJ  in December 2011.

After my MBA, I joined a consulting firm in Hyderabad and decided to continue my association with Rang De in Hyderabad. And in July 2012, I became a proud social investor with Rang De by investing a small amount from my first salary post MBA. In August 2012, I was a part of the Rang De Freedom Bus Concert where Rang De Brand Ambassador Raghu Dixit met borrowers and performed for them. It was here in Pusad, that I met a community of 25 women entrepreneurs, interacted with them and made many new friends in the 2 day trip . That’s what Rang De is all about – meeting and interacting new people who share the same passion to bring a social change in India.

In September 2012, The Rang De Hyderabad Chapter organized its 1^st event – A Rang De Box Office (RDBO) screening of “Bonsai People” an award winning documentary about Grameen Bank at Lamakaan. From then onwards,  it has been an exciting journey with the Rang De Hyderabad Chapter; which today has 20 volunteers committed to the cause of Rang De. We have organized RDBO screenings every month since September 2012 and conducted a seminar about Rang De at IIIT, Hyderabad where we promoted the Rang De Campus Ambassador program. We also organized a ‘Rang De Freedom Walk’ in December 2012 at KBR Park. All the events  have helped us in reaching out to more people and spread the word about Rang De and its impact of low-cost microcredit.

I recently shifted my base from Hyderabad due to a job change and I am very excited about reactivating the Rang De Nashik Chapter and continue my association with Rang De!

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If you are a passionate individual and are keen on contributing to social change through microcredit,  meet like minded people by joining a Rang De Chapter closest to you. 

Rang De Groups let you engage with your friends, family and other social investors on RangDe.Org and allows you to lend to rural entrepreneurs as a team. All it takes is joining or creating a Rang De Group for your alumni, work network or a cause you believe in!

You can create your own group, invest on behalf of the group and also invite your friends to join the group.

Here’s the guide to joining and starting a Rang De Group

The TCS World 10K Bangalore Marathon is back and our Rang De Social Investors are running for Rang De. Check out their groups, show your support and help them reach their target!

• Asha
• Arun
• Sreekanth
• Zishan

Get started by joining a Rang De group or creating your own group.

In early 2010, The Better India featured Partho Bhowmick founder of Blind with Camera, an initiative that connects visually challenged individuals to photography as a medium to express themselves. While many people applauded this intriguing yet fascinating project, one particular response stood out. A woman wrote to The Better India informing them that she was visually challenged too and after reading the story, had decided to pursue her lifelong dream of photography! “That was the moment that stood out! We felt like we had made a ‘real’ difference,” says Dhimant Parekh, co-founder of The Better India. Thousands of such heartwarming and touching stories have been featured in The Better India since it was founded in July 2008.

The Better India founders Anuradha and Dhimant Parekh, both avid news followers, felt something was amiss in the Indian news scenario. Daily news was grimmer than hopeful and in the ever increasing exposure of news, the stories of change and empowerment hardly made the headlines! Thus, The Better India was born in 2008; a website that showcases Positive news, Happy Stories and Unsung Heroes with the aim to highlight exactly what their name suggests, the better India. An India that is not only about hard hitting facts, violence, corruption and exploitation but about change, empowerment, innovation and hope!

The Better India started as a blog featuring positive stories and linking them to other sites on the web. But over the last few years, it has been sourcing content from a pool of freelance writers, journalists, social workers and organizations. A team of 25 now, the areas being covered range from environmental conservation, heritage, wild life, travel, to development initiatives. The team also travels extensively to cover stories and have featured almost all the regions of the country, including the North East.

While the Better India’s popularity has grown largely due to word of mouth, Dhimant also believes that Social Media has also played its part in spreading the word. The Better India received the Manthan Award in 2011 for and the founders have been invited to speak at many universities, including IIM Ahmadabad. “These events provide a lot of visibility and many stories come out of them. The interactions with various people also help broaden our perspectives and help shape our vision,” says Dhimant.

Almost five years old now, The Better India has now overcome its initial obstacles of content generation and building a loyal readership. They currently have 8400 followers on Twitter and around 10,000 fans on Facebook. The main focus now is to reach out to a more diverse audience through vernacular stories and also feature many more initiatives in each area already covered.

For everybody that wants to start something on their own, Dhimant has only one advice to give. “If you have a gut feeling and a passion towards something, just do it! Things will evolve on their own and it will certainly change the way you think!” And change is what The Better India has been spreading through happy stories about unsung heroes. To get a dose of inspiration, visit The Better India.

Congratulations to all the winners and a big round of applause to our participants! The winners were chosen by an internal jury and the number of votes their design received.

Here are the winning entries!

Congratulations to all our winners once again. You will receive your Rang De goodies very soon!

-Team Rang De

• Visit our Holi Page
• Paint the Logo
• Submit the Design
• Get likes from your friends
• What’s more? You can also win exciting Rang De goodies at the end of the contest.

Take a look at the entries that we have received so far! What are you waiting for? Grab the brushes now! Visit www.rangde.org/holi or email the design to holi@rangde.org. The winners will be decided based on the ‘likes’ the designs receive on this page only and will also be judged by an internal jury. (Voting closes on April 1st, 2013 at 4:00 PM)

Spread the cheer of Holi with our exclusive Rang De Holi Gift Cards! Gift a card to your friends and family and empower a low income entrepreneur with a low cost loan at the same time.

Wishing everybody a happy and colorful Holi. Celebrate the festival of colours responsibly & stay safe!

-Team Rang De

The 3rd Rang De Field Partner Meet took place on the 7th and 8th of March at the serene Fireflies Ashram in Bangalore. 13 Field Partners, Social Investors and Guest Speakers from all across India were a part of the two day event. This year’s meet acted as a platform for all of us to learn from each other and also see how our collective impact can be increased to fight poverty in India.

The two days involves interactive sessions, workshops, brainstorming sessions and saw the group network extensively. Each day began with a Yoga session that was unconventional but helped us connect with each other and emphasized on ‘keeping the mind open’.

One of the key highlights of the meet was the Rang De’s Field Partner Presentations on unique activities their organizations do. They spoke about their work in the areas health, education and employment among other things. While most of them provide micro credit to rural entrepreneurs, most of them also concentrate on other areas that help uplift the communities they serve. The meet also saw the Rang De Team sharing their plans for the upcoming year and the group brainstormed on these plans and provided feedback and direction.

Guest Speaker Aruna Subramaniam of CSIM (Centre for Social Initiative & Management) introduced the concept of ‘Social Accounting’ to the group and spoke about the benefits of employing it in organizations. Innovation Evangelist Pavan Soni conducted a workshop on ‘Everyday Creativity’ that re-introduced the group to creativity. His session left the group charged with positivity and creativity before returning to their organizations and teams.

The two days gave all of us an opportunity to meet, interact and share experiences with the “real” change makers. At the end of the two days, the group collectively wanted to work harder towards turning the dream of making poverty history in India into reality with a new commitment, vigor and enthusiasm!

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An account of the meet from the point of view of a Rang De Social Investor coming up soon.

The story goes like this. A few years ago, at a community meeting for women, someone asked the group, “As a woman, what is that one skill you have that can contribute economically?” A few women responded. one said “making agarbattis” and another said ‘making pickles’ and the answers stopped. Then, after a long pause, a woman asked “What can I do, apart from making “godhadis?”The group had a good laugh about this seemingly trivial idea. What was pushed aside as a laughable suggestion is now changing the life of close to 2000 women in the village of Bahadarpur in the Jalagaon district of Maharashtra. Seeing merit in this idea, our field partner BNGVN has formed a collective of women from the community all of them now contributing to the production of more than 250,000 quilts every 6 months. The sheer scale of effort leaves one mesmerized and the community engagement is inspiring and the simplicity of the idea is just way too humbling.

On a recent visit, I saw women working in 3 shifts and clocking close to 16 hour days collectively and the men are now helping the women too! One of the members turned up late to a Gram Sabha Meeting and when questioned, he said he was helping his wife with the cutting the cloth for the quilt. Making quilts has become their life now and the process has been divided into several sub tasks and each group is responsible for one of these activities. One group is responsible for cutting, one for sewing and one for packing and so on.

At 11.30 PM in the night the ‘chehel’, ‘pehel’ in the front yard of the office of BNGVN was simply breathtaking.  And there were many lessons to be learnt from the humble idea of a quilt. So often, as women we hesitate to share our ideas or speak our mind, mostly with the worry that it is not an idea worth sharing. And here was an idea that was laughed at and is now changing the lives of thousands.

Many such ideas that were once laughed at have proved to be transformational. Be it the idea of Seva Bank or the one of Lijjat Papad. This Women’s Day, let us celebrate the power of ideas and the power of one woman to change – her family, her community and the world!

The Rang De Field Partner meet has always been a platform for all our partners to come together and share their experiences. It has been about our Field Partners from different parts of India joining the Rang De team and members of the social investor community to complete the Rang De eco-system. The Field Partner Meets highlight the intricacies of the Rang De Model and help us celebrate them.

The Field Partner Meets held in 2009 and 2010 involved meeting the “real” people who make change happen for all of us at the community level but over the last years, the idea has evolved and this year, we want to not only learn from each other but also see how the impact can be increased to turn our collective belief of making Poverty history into reality!

We are pleased to inform that the 3rd Rang De Field Partner Meet will be held on 7th & 8th of March 2013 at Fireflies, off Kanakpura Road. This year, we want the meet to be a platform to learn and plan for the future. Some of the sessions during the meet include:

• Social Accounting
• Unique loans that our field partners offer
• Innovation
• The importance of Social Media and Web Presence
• Human Resources for non-profits

From this year onwards, we plan on hosting the Field Partner Meet every year to that we, as a community, can reflect on the year that has passed by, plan for the next and look forward to seeing how much progress has been made.

We’re also celebrating Rang De turning 5 with our field partners during the meet and take the opportunity to invite you to join us for the Rang De Dinner and Bonfire on 7th March. We would love for you to join us in our celebration.  As there are limited seats available, please fill out the registration form at the earliest and we get back to you shortly!