Empowerment of Rural Women For

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EMPOWERMENT OF RURAL WOMEN THROUGH SELF HELP GROUPS

- EXPERIENCE OF BAIF

Dr. N.G. Hegde

BAIF Development Research Foundation

Pune 411 029

Rural Problems

With a one billion population, India represents 16.7% of the world’s population. The country has witnessed a three fold increase in population over the last half a century but the economy has not been able to cope up with this rate of growth. Being heavily dependent on agriculture, livelihood in rural areas could not provide employment for everyone. In the absence of significant industrial growth, there has been severe unemployment and underemployment, resulting in poverty. For most of the poor, fight for survival has been a life long mission and natural resources have been the main source of livelihood.

During this long struggle, women have suffered the most. They have to cope up with day-to-day basic needs such as fetching water, collecting fodder and fuel, grinding foodgrains and nursing their children and sick, apart from attending to livestock and agriculture chores. Most of the rural women have been suffering from various ailments due to malnutrition, unsafe water, lack of sanitation, exertion and neglect. They are deprived of basic education and confined to their houses. In spite of their significant role in supporting the family, women in many regions have no status in the society. They are treated as idle, despite their work schedule stretching throughout the day. They are not expected to participate in decision making and even to express their opinion on matters concerning themselves.

The important role of women in the welfare of the family is being realised gradually. As the socioeconomic progress of the community has a direct link with the empowerment of women, the development programmes for women are receiving greater attention. The task now is to ensure effective participation of women in sustainable development of the community.

Role of BAIF in Rural Development

BAIF Development Research Foundation is a voluntary organisation established by Late Dr. Manibhai Desai in 1967. He came to Urulikanchan with Mahatma Gandhi in 1946 and stayed back to manage the Nisargopchar Ashram, established by Gandhiji. Over the next 20 years, he established a close rapport with the rural people and introduced suitable interventions to solve their problems. With this successful experience, BAIF was established to promote sustainable management of natural resources such as land, livestock, water and vegetation, while providing gainful self-employment to over 75% of the underemployed rural people.

BAIF’s activities include dairy husbandry, water resource management, afforestation on wastelands, promotion of improved agriculture through agroforestry and eco-friendly farming practices. The deprived rural poor, particularly those belonging to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, having small and marginal land holding and living in drought prone areas, are the major target groups. The programmes aim at sustainable livelihood, empowerment and clean environment.

The cattle development programme has been sponsored by the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India under the Integrated Rural Development Programme. A Cattle Development Centre covers about 2000 breedable cows and buffaloes owned by about 1200-1500 families spread over 10-15 village, in a radius of 10-12 km from the office. The annual operating cost of this centre is around Rs.1.0 to 1.35 lakhs which is met from the infrastructural fund of the Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana. Presently, BAIF is providing breeding services for cows and buffaloes owned by over 1.0 million rural families, through 725 cattle development centres, spread over 10,000 villages in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan states. The unique feature of this programme is door to door livestock breeding service by a trained technician, who also provides technical guidance and motivates the backward families to initiate various development activities. As most of the rural poor owned low productive local cattle, BAIF decided to breed these cattle to produce high yielding crossbred cows, which yield 2000-2500kg milk as compared to 200-300 kg/lactation produced by their mothers. A family owning three such cows can earn a net income of Rs.15,000-18,000 per year. This programme neither required capital investment nor skills. The women could easily manage the cattle as a part time activity, without disturbing their routine work. Cattle could be maintained on agricultural byproducts with a small quantity of feed concentrate to generate nutritious milk as well as farmyard manure for agriculture. As milk had good demand, dairy farming was an excellent opportunity for small farmers and women to ensure their livelihood.

To improve the profitability of dairy husbandry, BAIF promoted the cultivation of fodder shrubs and tree on wastelands. While developing degraded lands owned by the tribal families in some backward villages in Vansda taluk of Valsad district in Gujarat, cultivation of fruits was introduced, with fodder and fuelwood plants on the field bunds. Water being the critical input for agro-based activities, water resource development activities were promoted. The tribal families who established mango or cashew plantation on 0.4 land during 1982-87 are now generating year round employment and earn a net annual income of Rs.18,000-20,000. Looking to this success, the programme has now been replicated in the backward pockets of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, covering over 1,00,000 families belonging to weaker sections of the society.

While implementing land based activities, the following lessons were learnt:

1.  Initial priority should be given to the development of the individual families instead of addressing the general problems of the community;

2.  Involvement of the entire family in the programme is essential for success.

3.  As single sector development has several limitations, multidisciplinary programmes should be implemented;

4.  Illiteracy and ill-health of the target families adversely affect their morale and capacity. Hence health care, education, training and organisational development activities should be introduced simultaneously with income generation;

5.  As most of the rural poor are diffident about their ability to fight poverty, it is necessary to build their confidence before initiating any development programme.

Involvement of Women in Development

While developing orchards in Vansda, the land owners participating in the project had to work hard for land shaping, water conservation and establishment of fruit plants. The interspace was used for growing cereals, pulses and vegetables. As the men often went out for earning wages, shopping, or on some other pretext, the women had to put in hard labour. This was an additional burden, besides their routine activities. The incidences of sickness among women and children were high due to the consumption of unsafe water, lack of immunisation, sanitation and malnutrition. This affected the attendance of children in schools. These problems had to be addressed simultaneously to ensure active participation of women in the programme. This could be an entry point activity to involve women in any development programme.

While interacting with the tribal families, the Field Officers learnt about the traditional custom of ‘wavli’, through which the women exercised control over their income. Traditionally when tribal women maintain poultry or grow vegetable crops in their backyards as wavli, the income earned from this activity is exclusively enjoyed by them. The BAIF Project Team studied this custom carefully and considering its advantages, women were encouraged to grow vegetables as intercrops in the orchards under wavli. While the traditional Wavli is an individual woman’s activity, the concept was extended to group activities as well. This was a good beginning to sustain their interest in the project. In many locations where individual women were not able to work, the neighbouring women came together to work in a group. Some families came forward to lease their surplus land to landless women groups to cultivate vegetable crops. These women were trained in different skills, which led to functional literacy. The training courses also covered elementary aspects of community health and child care.

At this stage, the idea of forming Self Help Groups for initiating saving and credit activities was introduced to promote savings and additional income generation activities. Many women from lower income group felt that they may not be able to contribute regularly. Most of them felt that the office bearers may misuse their money. Ability to maintain the account and follow up to recover the loan were also doubtful. They were further discouraged by the men, who felt that micro-credit may not be of any help to their families. The Extension Officers of BAIF and women field guides carefully addressed all these problems. Most of the women were convinced mainly because of the good reputation commanded by BAIF in rendering self-less services for the development of their communities.

As the women came together, they were willing to form groups of 8-10 members to discuss the project activities. Gradually, these Self Help Groups (SHGs) gained strength to organise various support services, such as group nurseries to raise and supply fruit and fuelwood saplings. Earlier the farmers had to purchase mango grafts at higher price from the nurseries located at a distance of 50100 km. With the initiative taken by the women SHGs, better quality grafts were locally available at 30% of the market price. Realising the need for improving the soil productivity of their orchards, the women came forward to take up the production of vermicompost by using leafy material available in the forests, as it could benefit their orchards.

After undertaking several such development activities, the women saved some money and contributed to their fund every month. They loaned this amount to their members for consumption and productive purposes. Initially their demand for loan was for consumptive purposes and subsequently for productive uses. Looking to the success of these SHGs of women, the men also planned series of income generating activities through SHGs, which included organising band troupes, utensil hiring services, tree seed collection, carpentry work, etc.

The strength of the women groups and their influence on the success of horticulture development was very significant. Formation of SHGs was beneficial in empowering the women, while implementing various development activities successfully. Apart from savings and micro-enterprises, SHGs were also effective in discussing their family welfare and social issues and in finding suitable solutions. Hence BAIF decided to adopt a similar approach for implementing other development programmes.

Formation of SHGs

While the formation of SHGs in Vansda was to support the horticulture based development, a new project was initiated in 1988-89 in 12 villages around Urulikanchan in Pune district to establish SHGs for empowerment of women. These villages, located about 10-12 km away from BAIF’s Central Research Station were aware of BAIF’s work. However, BAIF had not initiated any development activities in the past, due to lack of financial resources to meet the cost. As formation of SHG required only Rs.5,000- Rs.8,000 during the initial two years, the expenses were met from the internal resources.

These villages being closer to the city, many men were employed in the industries. Agricultural development had limitations, due to severe water shortage and basic infrastructure such as schools and primary health centres were established although they were not fully functional. The idea of saving a small sum every month was well accepted by the women, but such savings did not impress the men. Therefore the women had to be motivated regularly to sustain their interest. Management of the funds collected by them called for greater responsibility and integrity. Realising this need, BAIF selected some active women and trained them as kindergarten teachers, as an entry point activity. Subsequently, the task of SHG formation was entrusted to them. Kindergarten helped to establish a good rapport between BAIF’s Extension Officers, teachers and the local women. This was helpful to promote the SHGs successfully.

In new areas where people are not acquainted with the voluntary organisations, interaction with the community through suitable entry point activities will be helpful. Some of the effective entry point activities are :

*  Development of drinking water facilities

*  Improving school buildings and community halls

*  Construction of community toilets and washing platforms

*  Organising health awareness and health camps

*  Organising cattle health camps.

The entry point activity should address their pressing needs and benefit most of the people in the village and the impact should be evident within a short period. Under the Energy Conservation Project implemented in fuelwood scarcity areas of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, supply of improved wood stoves and pressure cookers at a subsidised price was helpful in sustaining the interest of women SHGs. Promotion of kitchen garden, vermiculture and composting were very effective in Karnataka and Rajasthan. In Eastern UP, where many women were suffering from leucorrhoea, their treatment was given priority even before initiating agricultural development programme.

Based on the experiences of Vansda and as reported by others, it was decided to restrict the membership of each SHG between 10 and 20. A small number could help in forming groups of homogenous socio-economic status and facilitate effective and coordial communication among the members. The SHGs in these villages initially attracted single women and women heading the family, who had undergone social and economic problems. Moreover, they did not have to seek permission from anybody. The members demanded loan for procurement of agricultural inputs, leasing of land for shared cropping, small business and medical treatment. Gradually, the villagers were convinced about the opportunities for employment generation through microcredit without depending on local moneylenders. In Uttar Pradesh, families of many SHG members were in the clutches of the moneylenders. It was almost impossible for these women to develop their micro enterprises without settling the old loans. Hence, BAIF encouraged them to settle the old debts by negotiating the terms of settlement with the money lenders and providing additional revolving funds. This helped in developing harmony in the village as well.

In the watershed development programme undertaken by BAIF in Akole taluk of Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra, deliberate attempts were made to ensure the participation of women. Although they were prepared to participate in many activities, it was necessary to understand their workload and find ways of reducing their drudgery, before assigning new responsibilities. Water scarcity being the major problem, roof-top water harvesting, deepening of wells and conservation of natural springs were undertaken to provide safe drinking water at closer locations. This saved their time and drudgery, while reducing the incidence of water borne diseases. In many villages where women used traditional stone grinders to prepare wheat and sorghum flour, ball bearing was installed to conserve energy. In other villages, where electricity was fairly dependable, SHGs were motivated to install floor mills. Thus with good health and surplus time at their disposal, the women were able to attend the meetings of Gram Sabha and SHGs, and initiate activities such as managing grain banks, consumer stores, nurseries of fruit and forestry plants, vegetable gardens, flour mills, community biogas plants, etc. depending on the local needs and opportunities. While promoting these activities, the Social Scientists played a significant role in identifying active and literate local women, orient them for 3-4 weeks to promote SHG activities, assess their service and credit needs and facilitate them wherever necessary.