Mewat Field Visit

On Monday, I traveled to Mewat, a district in Haryana, with one of the companies I am working with to continue their launch of the mobile PCO project. There, women entrepreneurs gathered for a training session where they learned more about the product and how to use it. At the conclusion, they signed up for their mobile phones and the phones were distributed. For most women in this region, mobile phones are only used by men so this was the first time they had the opportunity to use one.

For me, it was great to see the pilot in action. It makes sense of the work that my colleagues and I have done over the past several months and it was even better to see the people that are benefiting from this work.

Over the coming days, weeks and months, the team will continue to visit these women to ensure they are comfortable using the phones and to monitor their progress. While there are only 8 women with this phone to date with this particular project, the hope is that the we will be able to roll it out to 50 women in Haryana by the end of March. And if it's successful, the operator is considering a larger rollout.