How a initiative in India's financial capital is helping combat growing digital divide and lift people out of poverty

India’s digital divide is having a major effect on the lives of the poor. In India, this gap is growing wider and wider as the rich are able to access the internet and digital technologies, while the poor are left behind.

For the poor, this digital divide is having a significant impact on their lives. The digital divide is preventing them from accessing essential services such as education, healthcare, and employment opportunities.

Without access to digital technologies, the poor are unable to take advantage of the opportunities that the internet can offer to improve their lives.

A Mumbai-based foundation Tiny Miracles is working to help minimise this divide.  Founded by Laurien Meuter who moved from Amsterdam to Mumbai to work in the banking sector, Tiny Miracles' mission is to enable one million people to lift themselves out of poverty.

With this model, it aims to reach 30,000 people by the end of 2024 Tiny Miracles also aim to license the model to other social entrepreneurs and NGOs, so they can work with the same principles and expand the impact to many more communities, growing to one million by 2030 and it believes digitalization will accelerate this scale.

Tiny Miracles currently targets communities living in extreme poverty in and around Mumbai, living at less than USD Rs 80 per day.

Laurien believes that to make a lasting, self-sustaining difference, in addition to the children, the parents would also need access to work and education on the importance of self-sufficiency, self-worth, and self-confidence. She also helped women in skills training that helped them get several job opportunities.

Laurien Meuter added, "We provide them with job opportunities and skills training and we help export their products overseas because in the West consumers are willing to pay more for these products."

Tiny Miracles is working on a dual concept for the holistic development of the underprivileged. They are not just helping the kids go to school and study for their bright future but also they are helping their parents in skills-training which will help them in a long way for a self-sustaining life. 

"All the kids have good health now, they are educated, and the parents who were not much educated and were jobless have been given training to live a respectable life," Meuter added.

The rich have access to information that can help them make better decisions, while the poor do not. This further puts the poor at a disadvantage, as they are unable to make informed decisions about their lives. The Mumbai-based foundation also makes them aware of the various government schemes available for their benefit.  

The empowerment of the women and their families in the program is the greatest impact Tiny Miracles has achieved. Many of the people that Tiny Miracles is working with, living in the poorest communities in Mumbai, are now self-empowered. They earn middle-income salaries, know how to stay out of poverty, and make sure that their children go to quality schools. While most were living on the streets at the start of the project, Tiny Miracles now sees women buying property as an investment to rent out.