Thnks on the immediate response Uday :) Let me see to where I can answer ur concerns...
We have been thinking of finding some solutions thru setting up some Small scale Industry ideas, for a while now. Once a while we do have some good discussions coming up on these topics. We have thought of many options including buying a school to wht not sometimes. So.....an idea such as this is not really against what we wish to do as a group, or out of our area of service. we are not looking at the business end basically, but trying to set up some kind of framework tht can create an environment whr ppl like Mr. Paparao can earn their living, keeping our wish to help the needy & better make the society intact. Efforts enormous: Lets see, how much of it all do we need practically. I do agree tht it requires some serious commitment. If its treated the same as trying to achieve the purpose of this group ultimately, it shudnt be too hard to motivate ourselves. The work tht I see coming on this Project: Initial setting up phase is what will involve some real group work. Treat it like another outing date for the group, join hands & see ur ideas take shapes. Setting up the store. Its a simple store idea, not some major dhinchak shoppe. Finding a place be it small or sufficient, and then putting things that we plan on. Lets keep it in the simplest format. Next comes phase where we bring in orders. Most of it all will be done in ur very offices first. Like I said, talk to ur office HR first, and then to ur colleagues who will have kids too. Its all for a good cause, and wont' there be atleast twenty percent of ppl who will be convinced by our efforts??? I think we will have more. This can be done very much in office premises. So not too labour intensive. Next comes meeting the orders. To whr I know, many of the wholesalers deliver the stock to our given address for no or minimal price. If atleast two of our members show interest in gng to the wholesaler once a month and get stock for us, it shud suffice. We will only buy stock against the order ratio. Delivering the orders shud be easy, since all of it is orders we will see from ur own offices. Pick it up at ur monthly meetings to avoid extra trips if u prefer. Later comes the gng to schools phase. This is whr we will need some field work. People with saturdays off can work on this, or ppl who can spare an hour or ur weekday to visit a nearby school. If weekdays are impossible, target gng to appartment buildings nearby ur homes on weekends, when all are home. Each appartment has more than 10 homes atleast. Even if we get two to three orders, its a good number. Apart form this, we will have some simple stationery like pens n pencils n so on at the store, tht our Seniors can sell at the store. We might need a phone thr, but again, if we apply for the local phone booth eligibility, this might solve it. Our seniors will also be thr to take any direct orders, we can display simple cardboards at the store on simple services we offer. (Ratan is too good at writing boards btw...he knows the script I mean...just a quick memory ping). How much can we trust thse people....hmmm.......we can try to make it as foul proof as possible, thts the best we can do. May be have one of our parents join the project, or, someone we know we can trust, who can work with us on this. Making pooja samagri, we can surely try this as an addition to an existing project, but by itself, it will be hard to go around and sell these, and against what we might make on this, the efforts might weigh too much more. Candles or making camphor, binding books this definitely involves more labour than just sit and sell stationery, and has its own health effects perhaps too. Low budget definitely, but, all the work area we wud need and all tht, and then finding a market, it is not tht big a market compared to books and so on. I have absolutely no idea on printing press machines, how much is involved or how. Is this as easy a market to reach comparitively??? Unsure. This will be more so a CO-OPerative, yes....rather than an NGO probably, becos there will be some business transactions involved, and some profit too definitely. But it will give livelihood for many in future. Once we help with the setup, slowly each task can be transferred to the right person. Hey btw I might sound too optimistic or Positive on the whole project idea, but, thts becos I donot want to loose my ground on the belief. Iam surely open to discussions and ideas, and criticisms too ofcourse. -Divya
