SHG Formation
Women constitute half the population. Development cannot be holistic unless better half of our population is involved. In patriarchal societies like ours, women are exploited and victimised and become weaker sections. They are denied rights to education, freedom of speech, ownership titles over properties and resources and are being kept as private properties of men.
In such a situation of gender inequality, GREEN considered women as the primary stakeholders. GREEN has started facilitating formation of Self Hep Groups, SHGs, among poor rural women since its inception.
The members of these SHGs come together every week and discuss together on issues that affect them most. They arrive at decisions collectively on consensus basis and execute them together involving their communities addressing and in the process solving problems facing their own survival. They also involve in obtaining various welfare measures, including schemes and services, offered by public and private agencies. During their regular meetings, they involve in action-reflection processes to learn from their expreiences and to take up corrective follow-up measures.
Each SHG is mainatining registers and books of accounts within the defined procedures and rules and regulations. These SHGs have mobilised savings and lent internal credit within themselves at reasonable rates of interest.
GREEN focused on helping them to acquire employable skills, build capacities, develop self-esteem, access information and resources and promote unity and involve in collective actions to address gender-centric issues. Our double-edged approach of socio-economic empowerment processes impacted changes in terms of enabling women to become leaders at the grassroots and decision-makers at the households.
Rural women are at present involved in savings, internal credit, linkages with banks, mobilisation of external loans, developing financial literacy, skills acquisition and investing in income-generating activities.
