GoCoop, an online Social Marketplace providing an e-commerce platform to co-operative and community based weavers and artisans in rural India, has entered into an MoU with National Scheduled Castes Finance & Development Corporation (NSFDC), NBCFDC, NSKFDC under Ministry of Social Justice Empowerment, Government of India.

This partnership will involve GoCoop providing an ecommerce platform for Backward Class and Scheduled Caste artisans, according to a company statement. Further, the objective of the GoCoop MoU is to provide beneficiaries of the NSFDC, NBCFDC and NSKFDC a global marketing platform, training, infrastructural and field-level services and support to help their artisans get market prices for their products and to scale up their business, the statement added.

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is mandated to build an inclusive society and its major target group includes schedule castes, OBC’s, persons with disabilities, senior citizens, and victims of alcoholism and substance abuse. GoCoop, currently supports over 50,000 weavers and artisans through 200 co-operatives and sells over 11,000 products, focusing on handloom, handicraft, and khadi clusters.

Siva Devireddy, Founder & Managing Director, GoCoop.com said, “There is an urgent need to create better market access for our artisans and weavers and make the markets more equitable to producers.” GoCoop’s unique development model is based on creating identity and awareness for artisans and hand-crafted products by listing them online. The skills and capacity of the weavers and artisan co-ops are developed through training and other capacity development initiatives for improving the products and preparing the artisans further for e-commerce initiatives.

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