Noida Circle of Moms open digital doors to maids
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Noida Circle of Moms open digital doors to maids

The Noida-based platform for mothers helps cooks, domestic workers and nannies set up bank accounts and operate e-wallets.

Noida Circle of Moms open digital doors to maids

It was salary day recently, and the entire population of India went crazy trying to figure out how to withdraw cash without queuing up for hours, pay bills and have some semblance of financial sanity in their lives. Petty cash remained a problem and paying small-time vendors an even bigger one. What about maids? Cheques helped, for the most part — maids don't really know how to operate digital wallets. Or do they?

Thanks to Noida Circle of Moms, an all-women platform for mothers, many maids, cooks and nannies across the city are becoming aware of how to handle financial digitisation, including e-wallets and online payments.      

 

Core team of the Noida Circle of Moms- Shavi Gupta, Neelam MehrotraShruti Mittal​, Anamika Gautam , Aparna Mittal  and Manisha Gupta

 

The initiative started with Shavi Gupta, a founder member of the group, opening Jan Dhan accounts for her two maids and educating them on using e-wallets. She paid part of their salaries through cheque, and gave the rest in cash, so they could take care of their daily expenses.

Says another founder-member Shruti Mittal, “The main agenda is to empower mothers. Maids and other helpers are also working mothers, so why not help them too? Cooks, maids, vegetable vendors are our lifelines, aren't they?"

"We have a WhatsApp group through which we keep up constant communication," she adds. "First, we try to educate them on how to open a bank account. If they continue to face problems, one of us accompanies them to the bank and helps them fill out forms."

Neelam Mehrotra, a seasoned and active member of the group, says, "To counter the cash crunch, all of uys downloaded e-wallets. But someone had to show our maids how to do it too. And that's where Noida Circle of Moms stepped in. I personally exchanged old notes for them, so they could buy their daily essentials and make necessary payments such as their children's school fees. Fortunately, we had insisted on bank accounts for all the helps. So paying their salary was not too much of a problem."

Currently, almost 50,000 Noida-based moms are connected through the platform.

 

Shavi Gupta shows her house help how to operate an e-wallet

 

Shavi Gupta says, “We at Noida Circle of Moms have always believed that moms have big social circles. So it can easily be a big platform for change. Can you imagine so many members trying to help their workforce go digital?"

"Mothers think about everyone in the family, and our maids are part of our extended family. It was our responsibility to help them,” she adds.

Another member, Deeksha Upadhyay, from Sector 37, went a step further. She gave phones to her maids on EMI and trained them to use e-wallets. She also paid their salaries online and showed them how to access it.    

So far, the group has opened 25 accounts, and trained more than 100 women on how to use e-wallets.