The Kaarvan Crafts Foundation, which teaches women in rural Pakistan how to earn a living, has teamed up with Dukan to launch e-commerce stores for female artists.
Both Karvaan and Dukan share the goal of providing economic resources, equal opportunity, self-sufficiency, and long-term progress to women so they can live lives of dignity.
Kaarvan has a network of 25,000 women who operate micro, small, and medium companies (MSMEs) in 22 districts across Pakistan, including over 1000 towns and villages.
They sell Embroidered Crafts, Fancy Dresses, Home Textile & Decor, Bags & Pouches, and Jewelry, among other handicrafts and other hand-crafted things manufactured from locally available materials.
Due to increased adoption of online payments, logistics, and linked cellphones, Pakistan’s e-commerce business has risen dramatically.
Small businesses, particularly those in rural and remote sections of the country, are finding it difficult to capitalise on the digital opportunities.
Dukan is offering e-commerce training to Karvaan’s micro-entrepreneurs through its free smartphone app, which allows them to simply construct online storefronts with global reach while reducing the complexity of technology, e-payments, and delivery.
30 women entrepreneurs from rural Multan showcased some of these newly developed internet enterprises during a two-day event recently hosted at Emporium Mall in Lahore in conjunction with UN Women on July 2-3.
Monis Rahman, Co-founder and CEO of Dukan, explained his struggle to ease the difficulties encountered by low-income strata of society, saying,
“Pakistan’s progress lies in uplifting our marginalized communities. Women, especially in rural areas of the country, have great potential but need support to become effective participants in our economy. Dukan is doing exactly that by providing these micro-entrepreneurs with easy-to-use local language technology tools which will allow them to participate in the rapidly growing digital economy.”
CEO Kaarvan Crafts Foundation, Mr. Danish Jabbar Khan said,
“We are committed to providing sustainable livelihoods to these women entrepreneurs. Dukan is a powerful platform to achieve this goal by allowing our MSMEs to gain easy access to global digital markets in a manner that they can understand.”
Led by a team of industry veterans, Dukan is a mobile application that provides local businesses and sellers with a free, easy, and yet powerful platform to set up their web stores and sell online.
