L.13 - The Village / Town as an Economic Entity

And so on in fact countless 'Enterprises' are in our Land, By harmonizing resources, Develop by one's own hand.

UDYAM SHASTRA- Chapter 07, Verse 31

Key Objectives:

    • Reading this module and doing the students activities will enable the students to:

    • Recognize how people live and work together in a village/town.

    • Apply decision making to start an enterprise in their village/town.

Enterprise Concepts:

Economic entity: A group of people networked together for economic purposes is referred to as Economic Entity. E.g. Village/town/community/other groups.

Economic zones: There are areas earmarked in a village/town/city for various economic activities like farming, industrial,market, business, residential etc.

Decision making: To make a decision means to make a careful choice from among options available.

Enterprise Skills:

The student 'Activities' in each lesson are designed to clarify the ENTERPRISE CONCEPTS of the lesson and develop some ENTERPRISE SKILLS (E.SKILLS). The E.SKILLS included in a lesson may not be exhaustive, but are indicative.

E.SKILLS stated in a lesson elsewhere may also get addressed through the activities of a particular lesson.

Some useful E.SKILLS are dealt with below:

Map reading: The skill of representing and understanding a geographical area on paper by means of symbols, diagrams and text is referred to as map reading. An entrepreneur often needs to map his area of operation for efficacy of operation.

Activities:

Activity 1 - BUSINESS ON CROSS ROAD.

Instructions for Trainer

    • A village/town has various economic Zones like farming, industrial, business, market, residential etc.

    • Map shows the main cross-road of business zone of village/town.

    • You should assume that this is the map of a cross road you know. The circles represent shops/businesses.

    • You may do this activity individually or in a group of your friends or members of a class.

    • You should label as many circles as possible by the name of some shop / business establishment. The square represents an empty shop. (Do not label the empty shop, presently. There is a separate activity on the empty shop.)

    • Based on this map, you should answer the question appended in the Worksheet. How do the people of the village/town depend on each other to live?

Instructions for student

    • Student should study the map, which shows the main cross road of business zone of a village or town.

    • Student should assume that this is the map of a cross road they know.

    • The circles represent shops/businesses. The students should label as many circles as possible by the name of some shop/business establishment. The square represents an empty shop. Do not label the empty shop.

    • Based on their map, the students should answer the question appended to it.

    • After completing the activity, each group should present and share its main discussion points with the rest of the class.

Activity 2 - MY OWN BUSINESS.

Instructions for the Activity

    • Perhaps you already know the meaning of ?decision making?. Simply put, a person makes several small and big decisions knowingly or unknowingly throughout the day. Think if you can enumerate the decisions you took since morning today, like which shirt to wear, which books to take to class, which transport to take etc.

    • In this activity you are going to take an important decision viz what is your own business, you are going to start?.

    • Refer back to the map of Activity. Note the empty shop on the cross-road. You have to decide what business to start in that empty shop. For this you are going to use the Flow chart of Activity 2 called as DECISION TREE It is called a Decision Tree because it has branches like a tree. Please remember that in an enterprise there is no such thing as a 100% perfect decision.

    • Your decision is in good faith at a particular point of time if you have applied due diligence to arrive at it.

Instruction To Students

    • Student should refer back to the map of Activity 1 (Business on Cross road).

    • Note that there is an empty shop on the cross road.

    • The group should study the Decision Tree flow chart and fill up the blanks in worksheet using the following steps.

    • After completing the activity, each group should present and share its main discussion points with the rest of the class.

WORK SHEET:

Step 01. Make 3 choices of businesses that could be started in the empty shop?

_______________________________________________________________

Step 02. What is Choice No.1?

What is choice No. 2?

What is choice No. 3?

_______________________________________________________________

Step 03. Discuss each choice threadbare in context of the ?Business on a cross-road?. map that you have already filled up. Some aspects that you can consider are given below:

- How many similar shops are there in this business zone?

- Are the customers you are looking for going to visit this zone frequently?

- What is special about your product/service that you will offer in this shop?

_______________________________________________________________

Step 4. Compare the good points and the negative points of each choice.

_______________________________________________________________

Step 5. The group should make a choice, which appears the most suitable to them.

_______________________________________________________________

Step 6. Fill in the blanks in the "My Own Business Decision Tree- Flow chart" with your decisions.