KOZHIKODE: Kerala’s much-acclaimed poverty eradication programme, Kudumbashree, is all set to spread its wings in South Africa, after its foray into the UAE and Ethiopia.
A Kudumbashree delegation comprising Social Justice Minister M.K. Muneer, Executive Director K.B. Valsala Kumari, micro-enterprise consultants and the representative of National Resource Organisation (NRO) will visit Free State—a province in South Africa—for four days from June 4 to help set a model of the mission there.
A province team had visited Kerala in October last and had a first-hand knowledge about Kudumbashree activities. “We have to chart out the details after a meeting with the administrators of the province. This will be followed by a possible signing of MoU,” Ms Valsala Kumari told DC.
During the team’s visit, the Chief Minister of the Free State, Ace Magashule, had sought assistance to set up Kudumbashree model self-help groups in his province to eradicate poverty and unemployment.
“They had sought the mission’s training to the SHGs there to work collectively,” a Kudumbashree official said. A replica of the activities of the mission, considering the challenges and opportunities in the province, would be implemented.
“High literacy helped take the mission forward in Kerala. That may not be the case in another country. So we have to study the situation there,” Ms Valsala Kumari noted.
The expense of the proposed project will be borne by the province. It is the third international conquest of Kudumbashree in a few months.
The mission team has captured the palates and hearts in Dubai and Abu Dhabi when it served its local variety of dishes there. In the first week of April, another Kudumbashree team had travelled to Ethiopia to study the possibility of implementing the scheme there. “An MoU with the Ethiopian government will be signed soon,” an official said.
