the enterprise development foundation

Sasha (Sarba Shanti Ayog) was started in 1978, primarily to provide marketing assistance to crafts persons all over India. Design and development of products and organization is another key activity. Now 25 years later, sasha works with more than 150 producer groups and communities.
In order to use all the experience it has gained so far, sasha has promoted the Enterprise Development Foundation to formalize the work it has been doing so far, and to provide a more structured platform and support system for entrepreneurial initiatives at the grassroots.

Vision: Sustain more and more business enterprises to eliminate conditions of poverty and unemployment through economic empowerment and improvement in quality of life of the marginalized and disadvantaged group of artisans and craftsman so as to improve indicators of social development through fair trade practices and social empowerment.

Mission: To enable, motivate, equip, and train participants to become entrepreneurs, to own and run successful, profitable, and sustainable enterprises through special assistance and mentoring in business development, management, theoretical and practical inputs from experts and professionals across varied sectors to develop micro enterprises for generation of income and employment opportunities and promote sustainable livelihood options.

The broad objectives of the EDF are:

To incubate new and innovate business ideas
To prepare business plans for viable commercial enterprises
To identify potential and skills of artisans and craftsmen involved in traditional art and craft
Identification of needs and capacity building
To offer technical training and development in management and life skills
To set standards for the best business practices including Total Quality Control Management
To provide design and product development inputs
To develop and facilitate communication between the market and producers, between stakeholders and development professionals and experts across varied fields.
To identify market strategies
To individualize agenda for enterprises to envision their future
To provide step by step assistance from planning till launching of products
To integrate trading practices into the producers’ and venture’s way of doing business
To leverage benefits offered by Fair Trade Network
To interact with members of Fair Trade Organizations and Buyers of Fair Trade products and Services
To provide a platform to producers to move a step ahead from livelihood production to skilled and trained enterprise development.

Promoters: The Enterprise Development Foundation owes its origin to Sarba Shanti Ayog (SSA), which was established in the year 1978 as a non-profit organization and since then has been engaged in craft research and development, producer awareness, communications, networking and participation. Subsequently in the year, 1986 SASHA Association for Craft Producers was formed as another entity of SASHA for disseminating market information, sharing managerial and design assistance. Both SSA and SASHA Association for Craft Producers are registered under the West Bengal Societies Registration Act, 1860.