Taking Citizenship to Market

“Jella Sujatamma is part entrepreneur, part healthcare advisor, part hygiene specialist and part mother in the many villages in India that she visits each week as Unilever India’s most successful Shakti Amma [empowered mother],” writes Janet Roberts, one of the student reporters at the October 2006 Business and World Benefit Conference in Cleveland.1 Sujatamma, a weaver who lost work when synthetic fabrics came into popularity, became the first Shakti entrepreneur on $200 in borrowed startup funds. Even though she is illiterate and needs the assistance of her husband and sons to perform inventory and accounting functions, her sales have made her the top-earning woman in Project Shakti (between Rs. 3,000 and 7,000 or U.S. $60 to $150 per month). “Sujatamma takes her unique knowledge about what the village needs and which products are in demand,” adds Roberts, “and couples it with important lessons in sanitization and hand washing to prevent diarrhea and in the vital role that iodine, consumed through salt, can have in nurturing healthy children.”