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Empowering Entrepreneurs: Marketplace Literacy for Low-Literate Individuals in Developing Economies

This program in Tamil Nadu, India, offers consumer and entrepreneurial literacy to empower low-literate individuals. Through a comprehensive curriculum and unique methods, it addresses barriers faced by the poor and equips them with essential skills for economic participation. The program includes training on value chains, consumer literacy, and entrepreneurial skills, with a focus on practical application and long-term impact. Assessment and follow-up support ensure participants benefit and can even start their own businesses. Join us in building a more economically inclusive society!

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Empowering Entrepreneurs: Marketplace Literacy for Low-Literate Individuals in Developing Economies

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  1. A Consumer and Entrepreneurial Literacy Program For Low-Literate, Poor Individuals in Developing Economies This program has been piloted and customized to urban and rural settings in Tamil Nadu, India. It is currently offered at regular intervals. A detailed manual is available upon request.

  2. Our Approach

  3. Sources of Knowledge • Experience with business education • Experience at the grass roots level • Research through numerous qualitative interviews of buyers and sellers • Not a one size (of business education) fits all (contexts) approach, • Combine business principles with indigenous research

  4. Barriers Faced By Poor, Low-Literate Individuals • Psychological (including self-confidence and awareness of rights) • Skill-related (skills as buyer and seller) • Financial We attempt to address the first two.

  5. 4-Tiered Model of Curriculum Development January to June 2003 • Broad Learning Goals • Specific Content/topics • Methods for conveying content to audience that is assumed to be unable to read or write • Instructional materials

  6. Training Program • Part 1 – Exchanges and Value Chains • A simple introduction to marketplace economics • Pictorial tasks such as • prioritizing elements of a value chain where money is often given highest importance at the beginning of training but the customer is given highest importance as the training proceeds • understanding the evolution of exchanges over time and the central importance of serving customer needs • Key concepts are • exchange as the underpinning of marketplace economics • multiple exchanges along value chains • meeting of customer needs as a key driver of changes in the marketplace over time and of success of a business

  7. Prioritizing Elements of a Value Chain Task requires placing pictures in order of importance

  8. Evolution of Exchanges – Part 1

  9. Training Program • Part 1 – Exchanges and Value Chains • Part 2 – Consumer Literacy • Role play with vegetable and grocery shops covering pitfalls identified through basic research • Assessing value is a central topic • Part 3 - Entrepreneurial Literacy • Consumer-oriented business philosophy • Evaluating business opportunities • Conducting market research • Understanding consumer decision-making • Product Design • Distribution • Promotion • Pricing • Finance and Accounting

  10. Value Chains and Distribution – Part 3

  11. Assessment • Training offered since June, 2003 • Assessment • Follow-up in 3-6 months • 100% benefit through consumer literacy • 20-25% start businesses • Training modified from 5-day program to 1-day consumer literacy and 2-day entrepreneurial literacy programs

  12. Unique Aspects • Conceptual focus to facilitate life-long learning • Emphasis on lived experience • Addresses an important need for generic life skills in the economic realm; underfocused compared to microfinancing and vocational literacy

  13. Marketplace Literacy Projectwww.marketplaceliteracy.org

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