A safety blanket venture

WOMAN POWER

The Safe Hands 24X7 security and housekeeping services is an innovative business venture in the Hubballi-Dharwad region. The venture, which provides security and housekeeping personnel to different households and organisations across North Karnataka, is unique in its approach, as it provides women security guards. This not only meets the needs of certain organisations like girls hostels and women’s colleges which look for women security guards, but also provides a livelihood to many impoverished women.

Safe Hands 24x7 was launched by Shravani Pawar, a Dharwad-based entrepreneur, in 2009 with the aim of facilitating quality janitorial and security services to the local people and organisations. The venture is acting now as a nodal point, wherein clients from factories, industries, establishments, residences, weddings, parties, conferences and festivals alike can approach for their housekeeping and security requirements and be assured of the people they are going to hire.

When Shravani completed her graduation in Social Work, she didn’t have a clue about the future. After much thought, she decided to take a plunge into NGOs and worked in rural areas for six months. “Those six months actually shaped my future. When I started working with self-help groups and farmer groups, one thing I noticed was, though women were part of all the hard work, they had a very little say in family, agriculture or social matters. Then I decided to focus on women empowerment,” Shravani explains.

Beginnings
She joined Deshpande Fellowship Program in 2008 as a first batch student in the Hubli Sandbox. After completing the course along with two of her friends, Shravani ventured into entrepreneurship. “All three of us had only one goal — to empower women and give them a voice. We observed that there was a demand for lady security guards.” Shravani recalls. They saw an entrepreneurial opportunity that completely aligned with our vision for women. Before taking a call, they decided to do a market survey. They discovered that though there was a demand, none of the existing agencies provided lady security guards in Hubballi-Dharwad. The team decided to fill the gap and started Safe Hands 24x7 with nine employees.

Sandbox gave the initial seed money  and provided the incubation space. Mentorship and networking followed. To test the model, Deshpande Foundation became the first client of Safe Hands 24x7.

But in the beginning, Safe hands 24x7 went into some turbulence. “Three of us started this venture. But on day one, one of the partners walked out due to some problem within her family. Within a year, one more partner also moved out. So I became a lone gladiator in the battlefield. Especially, in this service sector, you have to be very committed and work 24x7. Convincing parents and family members is the toughest task. For almost one year, my parents didn’t know what I was doing. I kept my venture secrete and every day I used to leave home at 5 am and return at around 10 pm. We had recruited men guards for night shifts. Many a times, they used to disappear from clients’ place and I used to get calls even at 2 am sometimes. On a few occasions during the initial days, I myself played the substitute role. Once we were established, we hired supervisors and now it is not a problem,” Shravani recalls the early struggle. Later, Safe Hands 24x7 started providing human resource for housekeeping along with the security guard service.

Shravani believes that mentorship networking is the most important thing in any new venture. “Money will come anyway and that is not the problem. Because, when I started, I didn’t have single paisa in my hand. I had not even seen one lakh rupees in my life. But now, the venture’s annual turnover is Rs three crore and I have a 450-member workforce. Of them, 55 per cent are women,” Shravani says with pride.

Safehands 24x7 has expanded its operation in many districts of North Karnataka and is trying to have a base in Bengaluru. Visit www.safehands24x7.org for more information.