Aspirations, Access & Agency : Women transforming lives with technology, a book by the Reliance Foundation and Observer Research Foundation, tells the stories of Indian women leaders from across the nation who have emerged as agents of technological change and socio-economic inclusion and are using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to help their communities build pathways to better futures. Written by Soumya Bhowmick this excerpt shares the story of Singmila Kapai Langkan.
Just as the pink Shirui lily (Lilium mackliniae), Manipur’s state flower, blooms in the hills of the Ukhrul district, so has Singmila Kapai Langkan with her entrepreneurial venture ‘Herbs & Me’ based in the district. Locally, such wild species of flora and fauna are just as rare as the extraordinary entrepreneurial journeys of women like Singmila, who are bringing urban India closer to nature through the strategic use of various social media platforms.
The 38-year-old launched her enterprise of handcrafted organic soaps and shampoos using the local herbs of Manipur with a Facebook page in 2019. “I started making my handcrafted soaps because we have a large variety of herbs growing in our village that have healing properties which could be used in aromatherapy. They can be used for a variety of other purposes too. I realised that these handmade soaps can benefit people through their medicinal properties. Hence, once I gained some training in soapmaking, I started my business and began sourcing materials from different parts of Manipur,” she says. Singmila’s venture is an embodiment of target 5.a within the UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 (Gender Equality), which urges “reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance, and natural resources, in accordance with national laws.”
Singmila was born in a small village called Peh (previously known as Paoyi), in the Ukhrul district of Manipur, and brought up in Ukhrul town.
She is currently married and settled in Shirui village in the same district. Singmila is the seventh out of 10 children; her father was a farmer while her mother was a homemaker. Despite being educated, many are unemployed in Manipur while others move elsewhere in search of jobs. She remains deeply pained by the state of the youth in this part of the country, which motivated her to access the necessary skilling programmes and start her own venture. She was also part of a local student organisation called Tangkhul Katamnao Saklong (TKS) that imparts training to the local youth in various areas, from leadership abilities to digital literacy.
Singmila’s penchant for handmade products was motivated by her mother’s love for weaving and embroidery. “Living in a world where artificial perfumed soaps were readily available, it is sad that everyone including myself would go for such cheap products that often compromise our health. So, I took the initiative of introducing handcrafted soaps and shampoos. A lot of people understood the traditional value of nature in my soaps and shampoos, and then social media made me aware that there is indeed a much bigger market for this,” she says.
Technology has been a major enabler in Singmila’s life, personally and professionally. A few years back, one of her friends from Manipur introduced Singmila to the Friends of Women’s World Banking (FWWB) programme for women’s entrepreneurship. FWWB, through its programme ‘Enabling Technology for Women Entrepreneurs,’ provided capacity building training to Singmila in micro-entrepreneurship. This programme was supported by Reliance Foundation and USAID through the WomenConnect Challenge India initiative. She reminisces how social media has been useful to her during the nascent stages of her entrepreneurial journey. FWWB had multiple Whatsapp groups, which helped mobilise the schemes in her community, and also bring in more people like her who could benefit from the programme's financial management and digital literacy training modules. Apart from Facebook and Whatsapp, the programme also encouraged the usage of other platforms like Instagram and Pinterest to generate creative ideas for their products.
Although she initially tried to expand her customer base through flyers and word-of-mouth, she soon realised these were not working. “I set up a physical shop for six months. But due to the pandemic, I had no business from the shop for almost a year. As I was not able to afford the shop rent without running the business, I closed the shop permanently,” she says. Instead, she used Facebook and WhatsApp to promote the products to friends, family, and a larger audience across the country. Globally, as of 2021, India is home to the largest number users for Whatsapp (530 million),4 YouTube (448 million), Facebook (410 million), and Instagram (210 million). Notably, without technology, Singmila’s business would not have survived or recovered after the COVID-19 pandemic, nor would she have gained recognition for her work. Singmila plans to open her shop again when the markets are normal without any pandemic restrictions, and her financial situation is more stable.
The pandemic has provided a strong stimulus for various uses of social media in all businesses; social media activity saw a 50x surge between January and March 2020 in the early months of the pandemic, and mobile phones were the most preferred device to access such sites (see Figure 1). In fact, only during the first week of lockdown in March 2020, India saw a spike of 87 percent in social media usage.6 Although 80 percent of merchants in India's Northeast region do not have access to seamless digital payments infrastructure—characterised by rural-urban divergences and prominent gender divides—the retail digitisation opportunity in the region is estimated to be about US$18 billion. At the same time, internet connectivity remains a concern. Singmila laments that since she receives most of her orders through Whatsapp and Facebook, connectivity issues impact her business considerably. “I am not being able to promote my products properly because we are still stuck with the basic problems. I am good with technology and have no issues using various social media platforms. However, whenever there is no electricity in my village I worry about the business. Our area has no power backup, which often leaves us without any network or charge on our mobile devices,” she laments.
Singmila’s journey has been arduous, not just in setting up the business from scratch but also in tackling the pandemic-induced restrictions, but she says that the government support has not been enough in tiding over the crises in her business. However, the young entrepreneur is thankful for the support from her family, helping her with soap-making, packaging and delivery. She also acknowledges the support she has received from FWWB and other NGOs in terms of her training and various other business insights.
Despite these challenges, Singmila’s draws plenty of satisfaction from the fact that she is able to inspire young people in her community to follow their dreams and choose a path to achieve their entrepreneurial goals. She is often invited by various local organisations to deliver talks on her tech-driven entrepreneurial journey and impart training in different craft forms. “Yes, I have inspired people to become more tech-savvy. My Facebook page has motivated many women in my region to do their product promotions online. Earlier I would use the internet for entertainment, such as watching videos or listening to songs, like most people in my village. But my business taught me what a strong tool social media is in terms of expanding your customer base,” she says excitedly. She currently also assists the FWWB in running the programme in Manipur and Nagaland.
As per the Sixth Economic Census (2013-14), Manipur had the lowest percentage of women owning proprietary establishments among the eight Northeast states, 20 percent to Tripura’s 89 percent (the highest in the region), while the national average stood at 78 percent. However, as per the 73rd round of the National Sample Survey (2018), Manipur had 481 women-owned micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) per 1,000 MSMEs, while the national figure stood at 195 per 1,000 MSMEs, making it the top-performing state (see Figure 2). Undoubtedly, entrepreneurs like Singmila have made major contributions to these statistics not only by pursuing their own businesses, but also by inspiring other women to do so.
Singmila’s message to all youngsters who might become side-tracked into using social media for unproductive purposes is straightforward: “Young people should first identify what they love, and then use technology whole-heartedly to reach their goals. It should upgrade and improve their lives.”
To read the inspiring stories of these women revolutionising ICT use across the length and breadth of India, click here.