Gender and Development

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India

Shakti: Women’s Empowerment and Socio-economic Development — Humana People to People

Barjee Devi proudly displays her vermicompost beds to visitors. The glow in her eyes says a lot about the satisfaction and joy she feels for being the owner of something she created with her own hands and initiative. Together with 10 other women in her self-help group, Barjee Devi was given practical training on vermiculture including start-up inputs such as worms and basic tools. All trainees subsequently used vermicompost in their fields. Barjee Devi went one step further: building on the success of vermicompost as a sustainable way to increase yields, she sold 100 kg of vermicompost to a farmer in the vicinity.

Apart from the economic benefits from her participation in the project, one of the major benefits has been the growth in her self-esteem and confidence. Prior to the project, Barjee Devi was a shy young woman. Her day was organized around the needs of her husband's household, working both in the home and on their small landholding. Uneducated and poor, she was initially reluctant to take an active part in the self-help group she joined. Over time, however, her involvement grew and she became more confident and started to participate in weekly discussions and in income generating initiatives. Her interest led the way and motivated other women in the group to pursue training in vermiculture.

The project provided other income generating opportunities as well. Like many women who received goats through this project, Smt. Bimla Harijan and Smt. Meera Bunkar dream of becoming professional goat farmers. Goat rearing and milking have proved to be a lucrative business for them, one that has enabled them to provide better lives and education for their children. By contributing money to their families, their status in the family has also improved. In time they hope their families will involve them in future decisions.

Background of the project

Women play a critical role in agriculture in India; they are centrally involved in the production of crops and have primary responsibility for the care of livestock. Despite their important agricultural roles, women in India have little or no decision-making power with respect to adopting sustainable farming practices and other farm-based income generating activities. This reflects women's general lack of power in rural India where decisions regarding their lives are still largely made by the men in their families.

In the Shakti project area, women's status is among the lowest in India. Women are married young and upon marriage move to their husbands' households. Married women are completely dependent on their in-laws and husbands who also control their movements outside the house and their interaction with men. Women cover their faces as soon as they see a man from outside the family and cannot sit down or participate in discussions when men are present. They own little or no property as the dowries they bring with them at marriage become the property of their husbands' families. Most of them have no formal education. While women make a substantial contribution to family income through their work in the fields and at home, they are seen to have little worth, and problems of high maternal and infant mortality, women's health, and pre- and post-natal care are given little serious attention.

In this context, self-help groups have proven to be a very successful mechanism for women's empowerment and socioeconomic development. The groups achieved these outcomes by providing a structure and a forum that allow them to meet regularly in order to discuss their common problems, build their confidence and skill bases, and explore sustainable income generating activities.

Nongovernment organizations (NGOs) such as Humana People to People India play a critical role in the establishment and development of women's self-help groups. As in this project, the involvement of NGOs is important in establishing and building group capacity. In many instances this requires considerable negotiation with village men before they will agree to women's involvement. NGOs also provide training in areas such as gender equity and women's rights, basic education, women's health and wellbeing, income generating activities, and sustainable farming. Finally, NGOs support self-help groups with access to microcredit and other inputs for generating income. Without the mediation of NGOs, banks and other lending institutions are unwilling to provide credit to poor, often illiterate women who do not own land or other resources.

Project Objectives and Components

The primary objectives of this project were women's empowerment and socioeconomic development in 11 villages in the Jaipur District of Rajashtan. This involved establishing 20 women's self-help groups in order to provide the following:

• access to credit, training, and other inputs necessary to undertake income generating activities including vermiculture and goat raising
• a forum for members to discuss and raise awareness on issues of relevance to women such as health, family planning, and gender equity

The project compromised the following activities:

• preparation of the communities for the project by Humana People to People India
• training and capacity building of 11 animators (i.e., one woman from each village was trained as a health and hygiene educator)
• formation and capacity building of 20 self-help groups
• training and awareness raising on women's reproductive health, family planning, child health, gender equity, and women's and human rights
• training and provision of inputs for income generating projects in goat farming and vermicomposting

Outcomes of the Project

As the above case studies demonstrate, the success of the project can be assessed not only on economic grounds but also in terms of women's increased sense of self-reliance and confidence.

Twenty self-help groups were established with a total membership of 331 women. The following achievements were the result.

• Women developed functional savings groups with money deposited in a local bank for withdrawal by the group. The monthly contributions from each member ranged from Rs.10 to Rs.50. depending on the group
• Each village received 50 capacity-building and training sessions (550 in total). These sessions covered
1. gender and women
2. nutrition and women
3. violence and women
4. work-related hazards and women's health
5. reproductive health and family planning
6. HIV/AIDS
7. training in papaya growing, vermicomposting, and goat rearing
• In terms of income generating activities
1. 11 women received vermicomposting training and start-up units
2. three women received additional training on the use of vermicomposting in growing chilies, wheat and peas
3. 47 women received training in goat farming and goats (with most women receiving three goats)

Women's Empowerment and Socioeconomic Development

The type of income generating activities pursued by each group was a decision taken by the self-help group and not dictated by Humana or any other outside agencies. Women discussed these issues at length before deciding on their group's course of action. Many women were keen to be involved in goat rearing as it was not new to the area and many women understood that goats were more profitable than other milking animals. Goat farming was also attractive as a form of income as it is less dependent on the scarce rainfall in the region, on erratic market conditions, and on the high cost of production farming. Once the decision was made, Humana advised the self-help groups that each group could be provided with six goats but that the group had to decide how to distribute or share them. In most cases, the groups decided that the poorest members of the group should be given three goats each and should be trained in goat milking and rearing.

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