Annapurna Mahila Mandal

The main activities of Annapurna Mahila Mandal are:

Educational Sponsorship: Annapurna Pariwar runs a special program Vidyapurna which awards educational scholarships to deserving children of single mothers. The NGO targets students where the school drop-out rate is estimated to be the highest. Vidyapurna started in 2003 as an educational sponsorship program for the children of single mothers who are borrowers of Annapurna Mahila Co-Operative Credit Society. Foster parents are identified who sponsor one/two children each studying between Standards 1 to 12. 836 children were sponsored in the last year.

Low Cost Day Care Centers: Vatsalyapurna is a chain of low cost Day Care Centers catering to children between the ages of 1 to 6 years of poor working women who are borrowers of Annapurna Mahila Co-Operative Credit Society.  The children are taught poems & educational games, story-telling sessions are held, and they engage in physical and mental creativity. They are taught soft skills like sharing, good lunch habits and discipline. At present, there are 21 day care centers in Pune and Mumbai providing care and a safety net to over 650 children.

The NGO also runs a working women’s hostel in Navi Mumbai and provides accommodation to 125 young women working in call centers and IT sector in Navi Mumbai. It has a guest hostel with a capacity of 75. The Dada Purao Research and Training Institute in Pune conducts research, trainings and seminars on Micro Finance and Micro Insurance.