Kudumbashree Investigation: Impact on Women's Empowerment and Economy Health
Advisor: Teacher Jasica
Internship Location: Idukki district Kudumbashree, India (Remote)
Onsite Mentor: Rachana Muvvala
Kudumbashree, meaning “Prosperity of the Family” in Malayalam, is a women empowerment and poverty eradication program initiated by the Kerala government in 1998. This groundbreaking initiative has transformed local economies and shaped women’s empowerment through micro-enterprises. From salons to shoe stores, I have watched the women in my family thrive independently and contribute to their family’s financial health. My research project offers a unique blend of social and economic insights, based on current data and interviews with the women in the Idukki district. Most research done on this topic focuses on Kerala as a whole, however, I plan on highlighting this specific district as it is less metropolitan. I want to analyze the small businesses that often go unheard of but have just as important a role. Through personal interviews, surveys, and financial analysis, my study uncovers how Kudumbashree has impacted economies and fostered self-sufficiency and confidence since its implementation. The study's results will be published in a photo book, sharing a visual representation of quantitative analysis and the stories of powerful women. My project offers a lens into grassroots development and aims to inspire policymakers and communities to replicate its success globally.
Project Blog
Week 0: Introduction
Hi everyone! My name is Diya, and welcome to the very first blog post of my senior project! I’m so excited to take you along on this journey as I explore the incredible Kudumbashree program in Kerala and its impact on empowering women and strengthening local economies.
Growing up, I witnessed the transformative power of Kudumbashree in my own family and community in Idukki, Kerala. It was inspiring to see how this initiative empowered the women in my family to support their households while breaking societal barriers. My passion for economics, combined with my exposure to women’s issues through my leadership roles, inspired me to investigate how Kudumbashree has improved the local economy and empowered women in the financial and social spheres.
This project gives me the perfect opportunity to combine my academic interests with my personal connection to this initiative. While there’s plenty of research on Kudumbashree’s impact in Kerala as a whole, I plan to focus on Idukki’s unique perspective, highlighting the stories and efforts of women in this rural district that are often overlooked.
Through this project, I’ll dive deep into Kudumbashree’s contributions to women’s empowerment and role in transforming local economies, creating a photo book displaying its impact. In terms of empowerment, I will focus on the self, financial, and political spheres. I will ask questions and conduct surveys with women entrepreneurs in Idukki to understand their challenges, successes, and how their lives have changed since joining the program. In addition to gathering personal stories, I’ll analyze financial records and community data to assess how Kudumbashree has influenced economic growth and poverty alleviation. Ultimately, I hope the photo book will showcase the resilience and achievements of these women. It serves as a unique blend of economic data with personal narratives, offering a comprehensive view of how Kudumbashree impacted the Idukki community.
This is just the beginning of my journey in uncovering the stories behind Kudumbashree’s success and I look forward to share my findings with you in the coming weeks. See you soon!
Week 1: Getting Started
Hi everyone and welcome to Week 1 of my blog!
This week was all about laying the groundwork for my project on the impact of Kudumbashree. I focused on two areas: refining my data collection and analysis methods and researching how to create an infographic book to present my findings.
Through reading some existing studies, I gained insight on how to go about collecting data and analyzing it. Many studies used structured surveys, different scales, and in-depth interviews to measure impact and capture personal experiences, emphasizing the importance of balancing quantitative data with qualitative. To put all of this into action, I spent some time formulating questions for the women running the micro-enterprises. I split them into survey questions to collect numerical results and interview questions to gather personal stories. I also briefly joined a call with Kudumbashree leaders in India to discuss how to distribute the surveys and conduct the interviews remotely.
Rather than creating a book with a bunch of text, I mainly want to create something that’s appealing and engaging to the audience using a lot of graphics, pictures, and colors. The first thing that came to mind was infographics, but I couldn’t find much information on a book version of that. Since I want my research to be visually engaging and informative, I watched videos on how to approach layout and design and discovered Cool Infographics, a resource full of tips and tools that I can use later when I start designing. After my meeting with Teacher Jasica, we learned that infographic book is apparently not an actual genre, which makes sense because there wasn’t too much information on them when I was researching… but that’s okay, I’m going to call it an infographic book anyway!
Thank you for reading and I hope you stick around for the next several weeks, I promise it’ll be really cool!
Week 2: Translating Troubles
Hello and welcome back to my blog! This week I focused on finalizing my survey and interview questions for the women running the micro-enterprises. And of course, the most challenging task of this week: translating the questions into Malayalam.
Since the women I will be interviewing and sending the surveys to primarily speak Malayalam, I had to make sure the translations were accurate, both grammatically and in meaning. Although I can speak and understand Malayalam pretty well, writing it was a whole different story. I had some basic knowledge from the “Learn Malayalam for Kids” cartoon books my grandparents gave me when I was younger (unfortunately I couldn’t find the books even though I searched all over the house for them), but all I remembered was the characters. Now I had to figure out how to put all that together.
Once I finalized my survey questions, I began my Malayalam script lessons. I found teachers on YouTube with playlists covering the characters to basic grammar. Online lessons helped me put what I learned into practice, allowing me to grow from my mistakes. However, Malayalam is an incredibly challenging language to write and I made a lot of mistakes. Like an insane amount, my dad had no clue what I was trying to write. Instead of spelling out words letter by letter like in English, you have to think of it in clusters of sounds. Because I didn’t grow up reading Malayalam, I couldn’t instinctively match the sounds to the right characters. There are a lot of subtle differences between sounds that I never really paid attention to before, but now I realize it can completely change the meaning of the word.
With a lot of proofreading from my dad and grandpa, I was able to translate my questions to Malayalam! Although this was super challenging and I still have more learning to do, I found this week to be really helpful for my Malayalam. I started to notice each syllable and sound of the words I would say, improving my spoken Malayalam. I’m definitely going to continue these lessons as the weeks go on!
That’s all for this week and thank you for reading my Week 2 blog! Hopefully I’ll see you again next week!
Week 3: Surveys and Structure
Hi everyone! Welcome back to Week 3 of my blog, which was a mix of finalizing details, making some last-minute adjustments, and going over some parts of my project.
I started this week off by doing a final proofread and making some minor edits to my survey. Originally, I had the survey to be formatted as paper forms, but I was given an update when I called some Kudumbashree leaders in India, allowing me to send out the survey as a Google Form. My survey has 18 questions, split into 3 sections to gain data on the impact Kudumbashree has on women’s empowerment: 6 questions addressing empowerment in terms of self-confidence, 6 for financial, and 6 for political. The surveys will be sent to women participating in a Kudumbashree unit, and thanks to my WhatsApp family group chat, I was able to have the survey forwarded pretty fast. As of right now, I have 18 responses and I plan on keeping the form open for all of next week as well because I hoped to get a larger sample.
In addition to working on the survey, I also spent some time rethinking the layout of the infographic book. I originally had planned to highlight 3 micro-enterprises, but I realized that it was a little more complicated than that. Kudumbashree is not split into individual businesses, it’s organized into units of around 10 to 20 women, with each unit running a few different enterprises. For example, one unit that I reached out to manages both a hotel and tailoring shop, and another unit organizes a farmers market and runs additional businesses to support the market, like poultry and vegetable farms. So instead of sectioning the book by enterprise, it will be sectioned by Kudumbashree unit, highlighting a few enterprises the units run. I spent some time looking through websites and FaceBook pages of the units and noting details to gain some background information to prepare for next week’s interviews.
Thank you for reading and see you next week!
Week 4: Time for the Interviews
Hi and welcome back to my Week 4 blog post! This week was definitely my favorite so far because it was all about the interviews!
I was honestly a little nervous, so I spent the first two days of the week doing interview prep. I started off by going over the notes I took last week when I was scrolling through the websites and FaceBook pages of the units I wanted to highlight, just to refresh my memory of what they do so I wasn’t going in blind. Then I finalized the interview questions and went over a few words I didn’t know how to say in Malayalam. Just for a little extra preparation, I also watched a few videos and read some articles on how to conduct a solid interview.
Once I felt fully prepared and comfortable, I met with Teacher Jasica to finalize the interview questions. After I got the green light, I contacted three women in the different Kudumbashree units to confirm our interview dates, and then it was finally time!
I completed three interviews this week (one of them was technically my backup, so there’s a chance I might squeeze in one more next week just to be safe), and each one was incredible. Hearing their stories firsthand made everything I’ve been researching feel more real and personal. It’s one thing to read about the impact of Kudumbashree, but it’s another to hear a woman tell you how Kudumbashree changed her life. I listened back to the recordings, picked out some quotes, and noted the moments that stood out to me. I’m so excited to include these powerful stories in my final project.
That’s it for this week! I’m really happy with how the interviews went, and I can’t wait to start piecing everything together. Thank you for reading and see you soon!
Week 5: Putting the Pieces Together
Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! These past five weeks have flown by, and we are now halfway through! My main focus for this week was just to get organized and put everything I had gathered together.
I started off by organizing my survey responses into a spreadsheet, which made me realize I definitely did not have as many responses as I had hoped. So it was back to the WhatsApp group chats, sending more reminders and hoping for more responses to roll in.
I also listened to the interview recordings a few more times because there were some things I didn’t note down the first time around. I made a doc to note the patterns between the survey responses and interviews regarding empowerment in terms of the three areas: self-confidence, financial, and political.
On the more visual side of things, I briefly worked on the layout and outline of the infographic book. I revisited some of the resources I found in the first week, and started to explore those tools to get an idea of how I wanted to visually present the data. I also played around with Mixam Studio, which is the platform I will be using to produce the book. Right now I’m just experimenting, trying different layouts and uploading random things, just to get familiar with the website. Next week, I will meet with Teacher Jasica to properly learn how to use Mixam Studio and finalize the book’s structure. It was pretty fun to gather everything I’ve learned and shape it into something real!
Thank you for reading and following me along! See you next week!
Week 6: Building the Book
Hi everyone and welcome to my Week 6 blog post! This week was full-on layout mode. I took a break from all the detailed data to shift my focus to something a little more creative: figuring out the layout of the pages and learning how to use the design platforms.
I started the week off by going back to the rough outlines I made earlier and trying to picture how I wanted each page to look. I knew I wanted the book to be more visual than text-heavy, so I played around with different ways to organize quotes, data, and photos. It definitely still needs some work, but I’m finally starting to see it come together!
I started to use Cool Infographics, a tool I found in the early weeks to visually present the quantitative data, but I’m still not happy with the sample size of the surveys. I currently have 19 responses, which is a lot less than what I had originally envisioned. So it’s back to the WhatsApp group chats, sending out gentle reminders hoping a few more responses will roll in. I plan to keep the survey open for one more week (I know I’ve said that before but this time I actually mean it), and then we just have to work with what we’ve got! Along with Cool Infographics, I also made an account with Mixam Studio, the platform I will be using to produce the book. I’m still mostly in the trial-and-error side of things, which is just testing out different layouts and mediums, and overall getting comfortable with how it works.
I’m getting more and more excited to see my final product come together! Thank you for reading and see you next time, where you’ll hopefully see more design progress and survey responses!
Week 7: More Page Planning and Pinterest Deep Dives
Hi guys and welcome back to my blog post! This week was pretty similar to what I was doing earlier, I just took it a step further.
I was doing a lot of layout experimenting last week on paper, so I decided to transfer the sketches to my iPad. Don’t ask why I didn’t do that earlier, I don’t know either. There’s just something about a pencil and paper I guess! Anyway, I continued to make layout outlines for each page on Goodnotes. Mapping out my ideas has definitely been helpful in visualizing how the book will end up.
Like any good design session, I fell down a Pinterest rabbit hole. I looked through hundreds of pins for design and layout inspiration. Although I’m proud of my free-handed layouts, I’m glad I looked at some existing infographic styles for new ideas and made a Pinterest board for design inspiration. I spent a crazy amount of time scrolling through Pinterest, but it gave me a better understanding of what kind of visual vibe I want the book to have.
Midweek, I met with Teacher Jasica where we briefly discussed how to actually make the book. We talked about how the LitMag team at school uses Mixam Studio and what platform they use to build their templates. I ended up talking with a few people, and they recommended using Canva to design each page before transferring it to Mixam.
Before jumping onto Canva, I decided on the printing style for the book. I’ll be going with the “handbook” option on Mixam, which feels like the right size and format for what I’m trying to accomplish. I plan on talking with Teacher Jasica once again to determine the ideal dimensions and page count, just to make sure I’m on the right track before locking anything in.
Thank you for reading and see you after spring break!
Week 8: Locking It In
Hi everyone! Welcome to my Week 8 blog post! After a relaxing spring break with endless Netflix and TikTok, it was time to get back to work.
This week, I continued to make progress on the book! I finalized the page count range and dimensions of the book, which will be 32-40 pages and measure 5.5”x8.5”. Locking that down was important because I didn’t want a huge, chunky book. Now I can really start building with a clear framework in place.
Next up was figuring out color schemes. I wanted something bright but still aesthetically pleasing to maintain a sense of professionalism. I played around with a few ideas and palettes to test out while I was designing the pages, and saved a few favorites that I’ll tweak as the final draft comes together.
I also reached out to a photographer in Kerala to get some pictures for the book. As much as I appreciate my dad’s efforts, the photos he took when he went to India did not cut it, unfortunately – his thumb was in one photo and the shadow of his head in another… Luckily, the photos were sent to me at the end of the week, and I’m really happy with them!
The rest of my week was pretty much a mix of page planning and designing. I spent a lot of time moving pieces around, adjusting where the text and visuals should go, and getting a better sense of how everything flows together. It’s still a work in progress, but every day I’m getting closer to the final product!
Thank you for reading and following along with my project! We’re almost done!
Week 9: Edits, More Edits, and Nerves
Hello everyone, and welcome back! My senior project is coming to an end, and it’s been crazy to look back at everything I’ve done over the weeks.
This week was pretty much a continuation of last week’s work, focusing on page design and making sure everything is in the right place. At this point, most of the content is in place, but I want to make sure the whole book feels cohesive from start to finish. I’m pretty much looking at each page with a super critical eye, so it meets my expectations. It’s definitely tedious and detail-oriented, but those little things matter, especially when everything is visual.
I was also getting a little anxious about shipping and printing timelines because I wasn’t sure what to expect. Hopefully it won’t take longer than two weeks, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly!
Thank you for sticking around to see my project come to life. See you in the next (and final) post!
Week 10: One Last Page
Hi guys, and welcome to my final Senior Project blog post! These past ten weeks have flown by so fast, which is absolutely crazy to me. I can’t believe we are about a week away from the symposium and two weeks from graduation! It literally feels like I was watching videos on infographics and Malayalam script lessons yesterday. Anyway, back to the project!
This week was focused on final touches and edits, and of course, more nerves that spilled over from last week. I played around more with the color palette because I was told that my browns and beiges were too boring… so I took the advice and added some muted maroon, sage green, and turmeric yellow accents. I also reached out to the photographer to request some photos to show more angles and perspectives of the Kudumbashree units.
Now to the stressful part, because no project ever runs completely smoothly! When I checked Mixam Studio this past Sunday, there was some delay in the estimated shipping range, and it was not projected to arrive in time. This sent me into an immediate panic, because what am I supposed to do without the physical book? Thankfully, I came up with a temporary solution that will have to do. While the professional book would still be in the works, I decided on sending the PDF of the book to Staples to print a booklet. So, hopefully that all works out!
Overall, this project has been so fun and eye-opening. Combining personal narratives with data has been very interesting to work with and see, and I learned so much about how to effectively convey these elements. Getting the opportunity to connect my culture with my passion for women’s rights and advocacy reminded me of why I care so much about social impact, and why I want to keep doing this work beyond high school.
Thank you so much for following me through this project, and I can’t wait to share my finished product with you all!