Social
ideas
Think
social
ISB National Social Venture Competition
[VOICE 4 GIRLS]
Team Details
Name
Averil Spencer
Agata R. Mandava
Amrita Randhawa
Smiti Gahrotra
Phone Number
Email Id
+91 950-286-8885
+91 996-303-5533
+91 916-002-2550
+91 789-305-7372
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Venture Details
VOICE 4 Girls
Stage of implementation (Kindly
encircle the appropriate option)
Category Type
Idea
StartUp idea
Ready to go
operational
Start-Up
Venture
Operational
for < 1 year
Operational
for < 3 years
Social impact summary
Of the 72 million adolescent girls in India,1 many are excluded from critical information about basic health, safety,
human rights, and life skills. Without this knowledge, these girls are more likely to be unable to advocate for
themselves, and caught in cycles of poverty and social inequality.
These girls also have the immense unmet potential to reconstruct their societies. According to research by the
NIKE Foundation, an educated girl will reinvest 90% of her future income in her family, compared with 35% for a
boy. Given knowledge and agency, an adolescent girl is proven to advocate for herself, and pull herself, her family,
and her nation out of poverty.
VOICE 4 Girls imparts critical information and life skills to adolescent girls (age 11-16) in low-income private and
government schools across India. VOICE’s activity-based flagship camp, Her VOICE, teaches girls about health,
safety, rights, future planning, and self awareness. The camp activities inculcate life skills like critical thinking,
independence, and leadership through practice and participation. This girl-focused culture inspires other
stakeholders such as teachers, camp counsellors and mothers, who indirectly benefit from the program.
VOICE girls experienced immediate benefits after the 4 week camp as evidenced by an impact assessment:
 68% expressed improved confidence and better ability to express themselves
 32% were more knowledgeable about their body and health
 16% became more independent
 11% liked learning to work with others
1
http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/Age_level_data/Age_level_data.html
2
In 3-5 years, long-term assessments will measure the number of VOICE girls who:
 Marry after the legal age of 18
 Give birth to their first child when they are ready
 Complete their schooling
Business value proposition
The VOICE camp model is unique in several ways. VOICE offers core and optional content, and adaptable levels for
English lessons. As such, curriculum content and duration are fully customizable for each partner.
VOICE provides a ‘Camp-in-a-Box’ containing curriculum and a process of implementation, where partner
organizations can license camps with VOICE trained university students. This ensures relevance and quality of
camp staff to the conditions and campers in each locality. VOICE has proven its ability to scale across geographies,
expanding from Hyderabad into rural Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand. It has scaled steadily from 430 to 2527
campers in 3 years.
VOICE predicts that it may face certain challenges in finding able university students to be counsellors in new
regions. The organization has already started exploring possibilities for dealing with this challenge.
VOICE’s target market are 6-10th class girls. It reaches these girls by partnering with organizations (schools,
governments, NGOs) who already have access to a sizeable pool of adolescents.
VOICE faces few direct competitors. Other organizations around the world have stated a desire to work for this
cause, but approach the problem from different angles. VOICE provides:
 A rare space to feel free and safe within the comfort of a familiar environment
 A discovery and activity based teaching methodology (revolutionary for this sector at this time)
 International expertise and global best practices in education and gender work
Financial sustainability
VOICE operates in a B-B-C model and caters to government schools (GS) and low-cost private schools (LCPS). So far,
VOICE has reached 230 GSs and 60 LCPSs in Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Uttarakhand (UK).
VOICE estimates its target market size to be a conservative 1% of the total number of GSs in India generally (there
is a lack of data on the LCPSs). As such, the market in VOICE’s current states can be estimated to be almost 10,000
schools, and 291,420 girls2. In India overall, VOICE estimates a market of 3,144,138 girls.
2
Assuming only 30 students per school
3
VOICE will proactively seek out new markets each year with the goal of reaching 7 regions and at least 35000
campers by 2018. Over the next 5 years, VOICE also expects to see organic growth of its markets because the
number of schools in India steadily grows at about 0.1% a year.
VOICE’s revenues, generated from partners, not directly from girls, covers variable program costs and service tax.
Risks exist with cash flow however, as VOICE recognizes that the financial liquidity of its partners may be
unreliable.
VOICE’s start-up (10 lakh) and operational costs (ca. 80 lakh annually) have been financed by self-generated
revenues and grants. After reaching 20,000 students in 2016, VOICE expects to generate fees to cover the full fixed
and variable program costs, achieving full financial independence and sustainability. If a cumulative profit/loss
were considered, VOICE would break even in 2020. As a non-profit, VOICE sees sustainability as the most reliable
way to ensure viability of the program, not purely as a way to generate profit.
Launch Strategy
VOICE 4 Girls is a start-up social enterprise. Since the pilot in 2011, the organization has increased its reach by
100% each year, and brought the average fees per batch closer to the variable costs of the camp - from roughly
Rs.4000 to Rs.12500. It plans to approach organizations around the country to develop partnerships for aggressive
scale.
This year, VOICE expects to cover all of its variable costs through fees from partners, and has a requirement to
raise approximately $50,000 in grants to cover back-office fixed costs.
Team
Averil Spencer:
 B.A.Women & Gender Studies
 Experience with low income schools in India through IDEX Fellowship by GMC.
Agata R. Mandava:
 B.A. English Language Teacher Education; M.A.:Education
 Experience training over 200 adults in English in Poland and India.
Amrita Randhawa:
 B.A. Psychology; Ed. M. Human Development and Psychology
 Experience with: 2 laboratory schools in the US; teacher education in Bangalore
Smiti Gahrotra:
 B.sc. Footwear designing- Marketing & Merchandising; MSW
 Worked as a designer/buyer for a retail house. Worked in health and education with women and girls.
4