Women and Community Empowerment
Objectives
To strengthen women’s status and empower them to participate in the self and community development process.
Women's Participation in the Development Process
- About 5000 women are involved at the core of the various groups and committees level activities in 150 villages.
- Community development issues are being successfully addressed by members of the health, education and nutritious committees and members of self-help groups.
- Women’s participation in local governance committees is on rising.
- Women representatives taking lead to tackle the community development issues and are involved in the decision-making process.
- Issues like access and availability of public health care, nutrition and sanitation facilities, lack of school-related facilities, access and availability of village development schemes, child rights awareness and practice, lack of women’s representation in local governance work, malnutrition in children and anaemia in women, village-level public facilities, adverse effect of alcohol, domestic violence against women and children, early child marriage, regularisation of food distribution scheme, lack of safe drinking water etc. have been tackled by these members so far.
Capacity Building of Women Representatives and Groups
The capacity-building workshops, seminars, sessions and training are being conducted for women’s groups, committee members and women community representatives for mustering their involvement in the development process of their community and children from the village to the district level.
Women's Savings and Credit Group (SELF- HELP GROUP)
- One Hundred women’s groups had been formed to adopt the savings and credit activity for the purpose of self-reliance.
- Through these groups women became able to save their money and get loans for income generation activities, children’s education and medical aid.
- These groups became independent and this initiative is spread among other women also. There is a number of self-help groups activated in every village.
- Training for group functioning system & entrepreneurship development was conducted for 2000 group members.
- 97% of group members got involved in income generation activity and thus could support their families.
- The process also was successful in putting money lenders out of business, who were charging exorbitant interest rates.
- Self-help groups create a platform for women to become self-reliant and also to address their self and village development aspects.