In order to enhance food security for its rural communities SEDS is helping small remote villages in setting up their own provision shops. All villages in these rural parts of India have their little shops where you can buy bidis, biscuits, sweets and sometimes bananas but small settlements often lack a decent provision shop. Village organisations have now started setting up their own shops in an effort to alleviate this problem.
Take the village of K. Maruvapalli. The closest town where people can go to purchase food and household articles is Hindupur. It will easily take the women half a day to do their shopping. Now the Village Organisation has taken up the project of starting its own provision shop. There you can get all the things you need like soap, spices, dhal, detergents, salt, sugar, vegetables, etc... .
This way the women save time and money. Money saved for transport and also for purchasing the goods because the shop buys in wholesale so the prices are actually lower than in Hindupur. Next to this the store also has a credit service of fifthteen days for its customers. 
What is SEDS role in all this? Well the management of the shop is done by the Village Organisation. SEDS’ function is mainly to facilitate these women, we give ideas, teach them about bookkeeping and tell them how to plan ahead for purchases. Basically we put structures in place and hope that by doing this the women will be able to run the shop by themselves in the future. Three shops have already been opened.
