Growth Gene Project

The Growth Gene Project as a community development initiative of CHORD was launched in 2015 with an initial three-year support from Microsoft IT, Hyderabad, with the following objectives:

• To bring intrinsic growth and development in the Yellammabanda slum, one of Hyderabad’s largest urban slums, over three years, through a multi-pronged approach with three collaterals- education, training, and awareness building (Schooling-Skilling-Sensitizing).
• To create an elemental change from within the community developing a chain of beneficiaries who in turn help build the outcome of the project.

• To change the intrinsic nature, the cyclic pattern of family poverty and children being forced into labor, by widening the periphery of gain and transforming the very factor that triggers poverty and a labor relapse in children e. Parents and Community.

By the year 2020, the project had met all the deliverables and had achieved the following remarkable and measurable social impact.

• The project has supported the economic development of vulnerable women by breaking the vicious cyclical poverty trap.
• The skill training for women has provided self-employment for some at their homes, giving them a daily income and enabling them to buy necessary medicines and making them capable of paying school fees for their growing
• The income of the women has enhanced their They are no more dependent on anyone else.
• GGP has established an empirically tested Social enterprise model providing employment to 50 women enabling them to earn a regular income.
• The economic development of women and the sensitization efforts of the project has motivated them to participate in the decision-making process. They are able to teach these learned skills to other vulnerable women who are needy.
• Children have been provided quality remedial education and have been mainstreamed into the formal school system

Way Forward for GGP

• Four solid reasons based on our empirical experience point towards the expansion of the program through replication.
• The pilot program had turned out to be a huge success.
• Groundbreaking results achieved in establishing a sustainable and scalable social enterprise through social innovation.
• Social enterprise had attained brand visibility and poised to achieve economic break-even promising a bright future for the project.
• GGP proves beyond doubt that quality education and training are the key drivers of economic growth and social inclusion as well as a critical enabler for achieving gender equality.
• Number educated/trained during 2019-20: Children educated-150 Women Trained in Skills-200.