After a month of training by 'Soothikashree', a micro-enterprise platform, a batch of women have started delivering traditional and ayurvedic post pregnancy care to clients at their homes in Kerala.
The initiative led by a 'scalable' social enterprise, Soothika, in association with the much acclaimed National Rural Livelihood Mission model 'Kudumbhasree' in Kerala seeks to revive traditional massage therapies combined with contemporary music therapies built on classical Indian raagas and using smart phone technologies, to relieve mothers and newborns of the stresses of pregnancy and delivery, a press release said.
Rekha Babu, CEO of Soothika says, "Soothika is a scalable social enterprise that focuses on pregnancy care through its unique services and products. Our micro enterprise platform-Soothikashree imparts skill training in state-of-the-art pregnancy homecare programme and equips women in lower economic strata to be sustainable entrepreneurs."
Music and massage therapy is believed to have major positive effects on the brain development of newborn babies.
The effort that dovetails the UN Millennium Development Goals of mother and child health with women empowerment has also started its work at a national level with centres started in other states.
The initiative seeks to empower unskilled women through providing a venue for self-sustainable enterprise through multi-skill training.
The selected women are then provided by micro loans according to the NRLM schemes of Kudumbhasree which are spent on training through the Soothikashree organisation.
Soothikashree trains them to use time tested side-effect-free ayurvedic therapeutic oils, massage techniques and ways to market their services.
It also provides a two wheeler within this micro loan amount and gets driving licenses for the women, along with a smartphone tailored to manage the service and monitor the sessions, allowing the women to have flexible working schedules that boosts the number of clients they can serve.
