Made in Rural India: The Story of India's First Bank For Women, By Women
Meet ChangeMAKER Chetna Gala Sinha, the woman who set out to make a change in rural India and succeeded by teaching women to be in control of their own finances. Brought up in Mumbai and a graduate of Mumbai University, Chetna moved to Mhaswad, a city in the Satara district of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Aware of the severe inequalities faced by women in the villages of India, Chetna set up the first bank for women, and by women, called Mann Deshi Mahila Bank in 1997. After seeing these women facing illiteracy as an obstacle in their path towards financial independence, Chetna dedicated her life to growing the Mann Deshi Foundation to become a space for rural Indian women to take charge of their lives, build and scale their businesses, and truly become financially independent. Today, her work has supported more than half a million rural Indian women, in the hopes that one day they will grow to be leaders of the country.
Produced by Urmi Chatterjee, Interview by Sutrishna Ghosh
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