About SMS

SMS was founded in 2005 to equip grassroots women with management skills to successfully run small enterprises and businesses. With its headquarters in Ahmedabad, a decentralised approach is adopted to train women in rural communities. With the understanding that learning is mostly demonstrative and emulative, master trainers are selected from the grassroots. These master trainers are trained in imparting technical skills, life skills and management. This cadre of master trainers then train grassroots women in the Community Learning and Business Resource Center (CLBRC) established by SEWA at the village level. The training is designed to be hands on, demonstrative and need based. The modules are developed with consultation from members and pre-tested before being formalised. This consultative method of training grassroots women and empowering them with the ability to manage business makes SMS a very unique learning centre and also the only one of its kind (in the world). The USP of SMS is that the trainers have experience of running enterprises at the grassroots based on which training modules on supply chain management and private sector partnership have been developed.