This blog draws from the inspiring engagement I have had with four ENTRELEADERS - Bujji Pallepogu
from Somavaram, Kirti Vartha from Palghar, Raina Roy, Subharthi Mukherjee from Kolkata, and
Rehana Molla from Sundarban.
Everyone has their own definition of an entrepreneur. If I were to ask you, “Who do you envision
when we use the term entrepreneur?” What would you say? Through this article, I will try to decode
the answer to this question from my perspective which has been built through my experience of
working with “ENTRELEADERS” – women who combine entrepreneurship with strong leadership.
The women I have engaged with have taught me that ENTRELEADERS are not the usual kind of
entrepreneurs who are seen and heard in the mainstream. They are change champions who
navigate a range of intersecting marginalised identities – those of caste, religion, ethnicity, and
gender. They ensure that women and trans people claim economic space and agency while working
through these marginalisations that are interwoven and therefore complex to peel away easily. In
the process of doing this, they have made trans women, and women from Tribal, Dalit, and Muslim
communities powerful and confident about themselves. They have emboldened themselves and the
groups they lead in a way that has also enabled them to gain community respect and recognition.
They have tried to bring an end to gender-based discrimination and to make women from their
communities feel equal in every field, especially in terms of active economic participation.
These women ENTRELEADERS have undertaken a range of economic activities including, claiming the
role of Warli artists that has been long held by men; mobilising community support for
environmentally safe practices such as vermicomposting; and generating interest around natural
farming among women-headed households, single women and/or women whose family members
have migrated in search of livelihoods to other states. Still, others have created the visibility of
transwomen waste collectors with government authorities so that they can claim state entitlements
and benefits. In the course of developing their businesses, these ENTRELEADERS have gained
exposure to a whole new world of markets and economic processes. They have managed to do this
while attending to the demands of household chores, rearing children, and a range of care activities.
They have created this space for themselves by continuously taking risks and exploring an economic
activity that best suits their context, their thinking, their knowledge, and above all their interest.
This has improved their social identity and perception about their own self, built their dignity, and
their right to a life free of violence, and enhanced, decision-making around issues such as their
children’s education and family planning. Their journeys have not been solitary ones. They have
mobilized more women like them with a vision to see them as ENTRELEADERS like themselves.
Empowerment is a dynamic process and not absolute, as many cultural and social hindrances and
barriers remain deeply entrenched and emerge in new forms.
Women have always been part of the economy in every country, be it through wage work, self-
employment, unpaid work in family enterprises or farms, or unpaid care work, and have contributed
to the growth of the economy. However, because their economic contribution through work is not
fully measured, their contribution to the economy tends to be undervalued. Even where women are
counted as contributors, they end up being clustered at the base of the economic pyramid with low
incomes and access to the most menial kind of work.
While working with these ENTRELEADERS, I have learned that economic participation and claiming
equality are very significant trajectories, especially for women living at the intersection of various
marginalisations.

Through Warli art, vermicomposting, natural farming, and voicing rights and issues of trans women
waste collectors, the ENTRELEADERS have shown that strengthening and enhancing women’s
economic participation is not about just increasing employment opportunities, making them
entrepreneurs but also getting a subsequent decrease in the double shift care work burden that
women have to face.
In my work with these ENTRELEADERS, I have seen that there is a need to address intersectional
vulnerabilities intentionally.