WORKING MANUAL

Status of Women
&
Empowerment

Status in the Family and Society

Advances made in social legislation and the relative ease with which Indian women secured legal and political equality, entered professions and occupied positions of power has led to a myth that, unlike some of the Asian societies, women's status in India is very high. In reality, four decades after independence and after five decades of planned development, the position of women has worsened considerably in every sphere, with declining sex ratios, declining economic participation rate and growing gaps in life expectancy and mortality rates between men and women.

The Constitution guaranteed formal equality and radical social reforms, forbidding child marriage (below the age of 18 for a girl), legalising remarriage of widows and providing equal share to women in the joint family property under the Inheritance Act, introducing important departures from the ancient fabric in the Indian social structure. But the enactment of laws do not change attitudes, and ironically, these advances in social legislation have acted as a disservice to women, engendering an attitude of complacency whilst the views of society towards the position of women have changed little over the years.

The prevailing attitude to women is still conditioned by religious symbolism which highlights the self-sacrificing, self-effacing pure image of women and the preferred role of a woman as a faithful wife and devout mother, whilst at the same time emphasising the subordination of women, ie., a daughter or wife is a commodity or possession. Subservience of women is precisely summed up in the famous injunction of the Manu’s code, where it is stated that a woman should never be independent. As a daughter she is under the surveillance of her father, as a wife, of her husband and as a widow, of her son or parents or male relative. A woman is always viewed as someone's sister, daughter, wife or mother - never as a citizen in her own right who also needs to live with dignity and self-respect.

In the current social climate, the significance of family is vital for women, particularly for poor women in the rural areas. Women's survival is not socially conceivable without the family. Motherhood is the only acceptable social goal to which she can aspire. Her worth as a 'reproducer' confers some status on her. At the same time, the social value placed on the role of women in the family is also responsible for her subordination to men and for her lack of access to economic and political resources, even where she contributes equally or more to the family economy.

The family in India, including Tamil Nadu, is largely patrilineal, in which the core of the family is the male and the women are brought as brides into the family. Amongst the higher castes, extended joint families of several generations prevail, but this is less typical amongst the poorer people who lack the physical resources to maintain extended kinship structures. Life in joint families is highly segregated between men and women. A wife has little contact with her husband but spends a great deal of time with other women. The tasks of running the household are shared between the women with the youngest bride shouldering the heaviest burden. The older women are given the role of controlling the younger women and enforcing the qualities of docility, obedience and submission. But nuclear families tend to bring little change in social relations - the overall influence of the joint family remains, but without the emotional support and companionship of other women which life in a joint family provides. As a result, women can face increased isolation in a nuclear family situation.

Women face considerable insecurity in the patriarchal family structure. Sent as a young bride into a strange household (in Tamil Nadu the average age of marriage is 20 years), contact with her natal home is discouraged. At the same time, a woman is never a permanent member of her husband's family - she may have to leave if she does not satisfy. This fear frequently encourages a woman to relinquish her rights to a share(legal coparcenary rights) in the parental property in favour of her brothers in order to enjoy the 'affection' of the brothers and to ensure a welcome in case she has to fall back upon them if her marriage breaks down.

The devaluation of women commences at birth with the preference for male offspring as the natural successor in the patrilineal family. The religious requirement of a son is an even more compelling reason for male preference, as a son alone is qualified to perform the rites of lighting the funeral pyre. The birth of a son is celebrated as the means of support in old age whilst the birth of a daughter is viewed as placing a heavy burden on the family to raise the necessary dowry for her marriage and for other functions. A daughter is considered 'another's property' and hence any investment in her development is regarded as fruitless. This leads on to discrimination in the allocation of resources - nutrition, medical care, education, etc. - between the sexes. Even as adults, women frequently do not have equal access to food within the family but share what is left after the men have eaten, with consequent repercussions on their health and strength. These attitudes are in turn reflected in higher rates of mortality amongst female infants and young girls, whilst, female infanticide is not uncommon, in some pockets, and amongst some communities.

The parental family undertakes the initial conditioning in acceptance of unequal status as young girls are taught to be submissive and docile while boys are given importance and status. The entire process of socialisation of females is to internalise the concept of dependency and subordination to the will and happiness of others, with the emphasis on the development of roles rather than of personality.

Whilst the dowry system has legally been abolished, in practice its prominence is more marked than ever particularly in urban middle class society where the payments have increased substantially. The whole practice of dowry is a further reflection of the devaluation of women and their powerlessness. It devalues the girl's contribution and her input into home-making and the family economy. In the commercial transaction, the girl as a person is a forgotten factor as she becomes a traded commodity. The problem of dowry is one of the most important issues in the women's movement in the country. As the demands for dowry continue to grow, so does the harassment of young brides by their husband's family for a continuous flow of gifts and cash and the inability to comply unleashes violence ranging from wife beating to resultant suicide and murder. It is, however, a difficult problem to tackle through the law as it relates to the domestic sphere and to the private lives of women and domestic violence is treated as a family affair.

The status of widows is even worse. Although they form a minority, in absolute numbers widows are a large group of women subjected to a great deal of suffering. Although allowed to remarry in the lower castes, very few actually do. The plight of widows is the product of an unsympathetic attitude by society. Today not many men or their families approve of marriages with a widow. Where young brides have been married to older men, many widows can be quite young with young children to support. Widows traditionally suffer from a number of social indignities being debarred from public places and auspicious ceremonies, not allowed to wear good clothes or to eat normal food and made to observe lifelong mourning for their husbands. The plight of many widows is not exposed where they remain part of their husband's family but are frequently neglected and ill-treated.

Thus, to sum up, early marriage, preceded by a cheerless childhood, a gruelling exercise of dowry raising by the family, adjustment to a strange family at the husband's home, anxiety about giving birth to male children, the curbs on freedom of eating, sleeping, talking and moving, the various intrigues for position among the women, the manipulation of males (sons) and a pathetic old age and unprotected widowhood are the prospects facing the majority of women. Whether the experience is bitter or happy, it is largely made so by agencies other than her own will and outside of her control. Within the family, a woman is treated as a social and financial dependent, controlled by the family in every aspect of her life; having had little or no education, her worth is measured in terms of her ability to produce male children or bring in money/assets; she no longer belongs to her father's family, whilst her position in her husband's family is conditional.

Whilst the way a woman lives may seem to have changed little over the years, there is some evidence that the manner in which women have begun to perceive themselves and their surroundings is beginning to undergo a change. Some women are beginning to question if this is all there is to life. The cocoon that had sheltered and given security and comfort to previous generations of women can no longer provide them to the younger women in the present highly materialistic and changing society. Effective interventions through process-oriented development and empowerment programmes for women has been found to be successful in improving her status in family and society, while giving her a feeling of self-worth.

Economic Role of Women

The position of women in the social structure affects the way they are regarded in their economic roles as well. Firstly, it has resulted in a pervasive sexual division of labour, which reinforces the notion of the male having more power and relegates low status occupations to women. In so doing it leads to a waste of female potential and ignores individual differences in capacities and abilities within each sex. Once occupational or task segregation takes place, it tends to be retained against all other rational criteria.

Secondly, through defining women as solely responsible for family care, their incursion into the labour market, made inevitable by inadequate incomes of males or absence of male earners, is at certain levels seen as deviant behaviour and results in the pervasive notion of the woman worker as a supplementary earner irrespective of the total resources contributed to the household or the time and energy spent. Thus, a woman who earns as much as 50% or sometimes 100% of the household income is still regarded as a supplementary earner. And almost in all cases and in all levels (except to a large extent in the organized sector which accounts for a very very small percentage of women) they do not get equal wages for equal work, nor do the conditions of work offerred to them take into account their dual roles. The need to combine productive work with her reproductive role and family responsibilities means that a woman's choice of work is often dictated by what is feasible and easily available, and this need for flexibility is frequently exploited by the labour market and is easily used as another excuse to pay low wages to women.

Amongst the poorer sections of the rural community, women are frequently expected to shoulder the burden of the survival of their families. As one woman put it - "If there is money in the house, the control is his. If there is no money in the house, the responsibility is mine".

On account of the high incidence of casualisation and erratic availability of work, women are generally engaged in a multiplicity of activities. Similarly, their employment status varies from unpaid family work to wage labour outside the home, contract/piece work, independent work and rendering services in exchange for goods and services. Women tend to work for longer hours and contribute more than men in terms of total labour energy spent by the household members. On account of deeply entrenched social customs, taboos and prejudices, women's work continues to be invisible and confined more to non- monetary activities. The average hours of unpaid work done by married women outside of the home varies from 6 to 7.5 hours per day, some of them working more than 10 hours whilst during the peak agricultural seasons it is not uncommon for them to be engaged in agricultural operations for 12 hours per day.

Women are principally engaged in agriculture or in the unorganised informal sector as construction workers, petty hawkers and vendors and in traditional home based occupations such as basket and mat weaving, bidi making, lace making, agarbathis, etc. Women are also involved in marketing in certain traditional areas. Marketing of agricultural products, however, is traditionally undertaken by men. Women are involved in fish trading, vegetable and flower vending and other areas of petty market trading. Similarly, women involved in handicraft occupations such as basket making, etc., will frequently market their products in the local shandies(bazaars).

Women in agriculture

Women carry out the bulk of the work in agricultural production. Around 70-80% of all field work is done by women whilst most post harvest and processing tasks are solely their responsibility. There is, however, strict sexual division of labour in agricultural work. All operations involving machinery and draught animals are performed by men. Thus, men are responsible for all ploughing, harrowing and levelling, for irrigation using bullock bailing, for threshing where animals are used and for spraying. All activities involving direct manual labour are assigned to women. These include sowing, transplanting and weeding. Women also play an important role in harvesting and processing work, which has not been mechanised. This particularly applies to harvesting, threshing, winnowing, dehusking and grinding of millets. Rice, on the other hand, is now mostly de-husked by rice mills.

Women are also heavily involved in animal husbandry. Whilst the care of draught animals tends to be the man's responsibility, care of milch animals, sheep and goats are the woman's preserve. In this connection, women are involved in the collection of fodder from the forests and other communal areas.

Women in the informal sector

Women's involvement in the informal sector is characterised by a high incidence of casual labour with women mostly doing intermittent jobs at extremely low wages or working on their own account for very uneconomical returns. There is a total lack of job security and social security benefits. The areas of exploitation are high resulting in long hours, unsatisfactory work conditions and health hazards. In addition, the women are exposed to financial exploitation by traders and middlemen who provide credit or raw materials and take back the finished product, cheating the women through providing insufficient or sub-standard raw materials and then making unreasonable deductions for poor quality. The organised sector takes advantage of this vulnerable position of the labour force in the informal sector and large industries are now finding it advantageous to decentralise production to make use of workers in the informal sector.

Access & Control over income and participation in decision-making

Although many families can only survive through the contributions made by women to the family income, women generally have little control over family income and expenditure decisions. As a rule, the men consider their wages as their own income and they give only a certain part to the women for family needs. Wages for agricultural work, even when paid to the women, are usually taken over and controlled by the household men. The squandering of income by the men on drink, etc. is a major concern of many women, who criticise the fact that the so- called breadwinners consider their income to be private property whilst they are left to manage the household as best they may. However, where the women have some control over the money they earn, they usually spend the bulk of it on the family's basic needs, especially food. Hence, the issue of control over household income is a crucial factor affecting nutritional levels of women and children.

Various studies have revealed that children's nutritional shortfalls in agricultural labour households are much more closely linked to whether or not the mother was employed, than to the father's employment; daughters in particular were left much worse off than the sons on the mother's non-working days.

Women, in addition, have virtually no control over the family assets. In the majority of cases land is in the name of the male head of the household. The women also have no control over, or access to, other means of production necessary for agricultural operations like wells, ploughs and draught animals which are the men's possessions. The same is true of other agricultural implements and tools, like harrows, sowers, carts, etc. The only tools and implements in the possession of women are sickles, baskets and winnowing fans. Furthermore, there is a qualitative difference between the tools controlled by men and those in the control of women. Whereas men's tools are usually based on the use of other- than-human sources of energy, women's tools are usually dependent on their own physical energy. Thus, women's tools imply more labour intensive work than those of men and as a result, women's work is considered less productive than men's work and is consequently lower paid. Thus, wages for women in agriculture are only around 50-60% of those of men.

Feminisation of poverty

Poverty and unemployment have the worst effect on women leading to the phenomenon of feminisation of poverty. Wide inequalities exist in the distribution of the burden of poverty between male and female household members in the male headed households. Women are discriminated against in access to basic necessities such as food and medical care. When the family resources are meagre, the shortfall in the women's food intake is likely to be twice as high as for the male members of the household. Amongst children, consistently higher proportion of girls are found to be malnourished, with the situation particularly acute amongst the landless families. Given the link between nutritional deficiency and susceptibility to infection, this leads on to a higher incidence of illness amongst female children, which coupled with less access to medical treatment for girls, results in higher mortality rates for young girls than for boys.

Amongst adults, a greater percentage of women than men receive no medical treatment in the event of illness and among those treated, the reliance on traditional medicine is higher amongst women whereas men receive more expensive modern medical treatment. These differences in the treatment of men and women are reflected in the sex- differentials in mortality. Indian women have a lower expectancy of life than men and the difference between male and female life expectancy has been increasing consistently since 1921 when female life expectancy exceeded that of males by 1.5 years. Now the position is reversed and male life expectancy exceeds that of females by 1.7 years.

The few time allocation studies undertaken in India indicate that rural women of poor households put in long hours of work, often longer than men, when domestic work, other home- based work and labour outside the home is counted. Anecdotal evidence also indicates that rural men have more leisure than rural women who can rarely enjoy 'leisure' in any real sense due to their sole responsibility for child care. The burden of women's domestic work, particularly their specific responsibility for collecting fuel, fodder and water has increased under conditions of increasing deforestation and ecological deterioration requiring them to walk longer distances and spend longer hours in acquiring the family's needs. Where these can no longer be met, changes in consumption patterns occur involving a decrease in the number of cooked meals which adversely affects the nutritional quality of the food intake of the family.

Women are particularly affected by seasonal variations in poverty particularly where food-at-work as part of the wages is a significant factor in women's overall intake of food. Women's employment is much more seasonal in nature than men's due to the greater task-specificity of women's work. This means that female agricultural labourers have access to income only in certain times of the year and during the slack period they are exposed much to the risk of undernourishment and starvation.

The major problem for the bulk of rural families is the availability of employment. The pressure on land, the extinction of certain handicrafts, etc. have contributed to migration from the rural areas. 77% of all migrants are females.

Female headed households

Female headed households are predominantly to be found amongst the poor where they constitute a much more marginalised group even amongst the 'poorest of the poor'. Women headed households are the result of widowhood, migration, desertion or illness, unemployment or the addictive habits of their husbands. They suffer a high incidence of poverty and occupy the bottom rung of society. At the same time, the delivery structures of credit, technical advice, etc. do not reach them as institutions are slow to recognise women as heads of households. In Tamil Nadu, 15% of the households are headed by women compared with 10% for India as a whole but this is acknowledged to be a gross underestimate, failing to take due account of the de facto female headed households where women are the effective supporters of the family, due to the inability of male members to provide for the family. Amongst all the States, Tamil Nadu has the fourth highest percentage of female-headed households in the country.

Various studies of female headed households (FHHs) indicate that compared to male-headed households (MHHs), a significantly higher percentage of FHHs are in the higher age groups (over 60 years), depend on wage labour as opposed to self-employment in non-agricultural activities and have a low education level and high illiteracy rate. Amongst cultivating households, FHHs tend to be concentrated amongst the smallest holding size of less than one acre. Thus overall, FHHs have poorer survival chances given their lower control over land resources and their greater dependency on wage income, their higher rate of involuntary unemployment and the lower levels of education and literacy of the household heads. The smaller size of FHHs also implies a lower availability of household labour. This can negatively affect the ability of female heads to be successful in self- employment ventures. All these factors indicate that female-headed households are more poverty-prone.

The Village financial market

Any meagre assets that the family may posses are invariably pawned for loans to meet their urgent consumption and productive needs. The rates are too high, and alternatives too few, leading to inability to repay, loss of asset pawned, and return to same mode for next need. The source of borrowing may be the local moneylender, traders (buyer of their produce) land-lord, relatives or friends. This cycle leads then ensures their continued dependence on them leading to the oft quoted "debt-trap" and entrenchment in poverty and maybe, bonded labour.

The IFAD Experiment and the Tamil Nadu experience:

It is in this context that the TNWDP experiment becomes relevant. This early pioneering effort was aided and enhanced by assistance of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, through the Tamil Nadu Women Development Project (TNWDP) taken up for implementation by the Government of Tamil Nadu through the Tamil Nadu Corporation for Development of Women Ltd.,(TNCDW) in eight Districts (then five districts) of Tamil Nadu in 1989-90. The prime objectives of the project were to improve the social and economic position of women below poverty line, through the formation of Self-Help Groups of poor women in these districts with active assistance and supervision of NGOs. The results of the project speak for themselves.

Financial discipline inculcated through internal rotation of savings and introduction of best practices like double-entry book-keeping helped in building capacity of the SHG members. Training in SHG management, skill development, etc., also played a very important role in empowering poor women. An interim evaluation report by ORG clearly points out how the standing of SHG members in their families and neighbourhood and participation of women members in decision-making in their families and community have improved significantly, pointing to successful achievement of social empowerment of women. Credit goes to Indian Bank in joining this massive effort and supporting credit-worthy groups with timely doses of credit, while subsidy was provided by TNCDW. It is a matter of great pride that so far Rs.48.16 crores have been disbursed as credit and Rs.32.33 crores as subsidy, totalling Rs.80.49 crores to 87,541 SHG members, with an average repayment of 85% till date. 5207 SHGs with 120960 women-members having a total savings corpus fund of Rs. 22.89 crores are proof of the successful partnership between TNCDW, NGOs, Indian Bank and NABARD. IFAD funding came to a close on 31.12.98, with post-project activities, including continued credit support under progress.

TNWDP has effected a sea change in the living conditions of poor rural women. NGOs have played a key role right from formation of women Self-Help Groups to attainment of women empowerment, by providing necessary training and other inputs. The average repayment level of IFAD loans is above 85% consistently and is one of the key indicators of success of IFAD Project. Efforts have also been made to make all IFAD groups sustainable. The need for sustainability and strategies for sustainability have been impressed upon SHG members to make groups self-reliant in the long run.

The ultimate objective of the intervention is to leave behind self-reliant and sustainable SHGs, through a process of careful and slow withdrawal by NGOs and TNCDW in a phased manner, has been achieved with a large majority of groups reaching this stage.

Considering the meritorious features of this unique project, similar Projects with IFAD funding have been launched in other states. This project has also become the role-model for emergence of lot of Self Help Groups in both IFAD and non-IFAD districts of TN, on their own. Tamil Nadu Women Development project has been the main source of inspiration for formation of thousands of groups by Arivoli Iyakkam, TANWA, SGSY, Banks, TNINP, and NGOs.

A Gender Impact Assessment study made as part of the IFAD Completion Evaluation Mission indicates substantial improvement in women's access and control to resources, increased mobility, increased self-confidence, increased voice of women in household and community decision making.

The logical step forward...

Despite the advances made under the IFAD project, the tasks before civil society, comprising of government, NGOs, advocacy groups and the poor women themselves, appear formidable. The discussions in various International fora and groups have been very exhaustive. The Jakarta Declaration and Plan of Action for the Advancement of Women in Asia in 1994 and the Platform for Action (PFA) at the 1995 Beijing Conference are some of the key guiding principles. A State Policy for Women is under formulation based on some of the key recommendations of these seminal documents.

The IFAD experiment was a small scale project. However the success of the project led to the announcement of Mahalir Thittam in 1996 extending the coverage to the entire State in a phased manner. Currently, the coverage extends to rural areas of 28 districts of the State (all except Chennai)

C

OBJECTIVES

The Tamil Nadu Women's Development Project under the name of "Mahalir Thittam", contemplates a massive expansion of the TNWDP(IFAD) successes to cover about 10 lakhs poor women of the State over the project period of 5 years. This scheme is intended to promote economic development and social empowerment of the poorest women through a network of Self Help Groups formed with active support of NGOs. The scheme based on the TNWDP(IFAD) experiment, adopts positive learning, while casting away many of the shortcomings seen in TNWDP(IFAD).

The project area encompasses rural areas of all 28 districts of Tamil Nadu except Chennai District. The scheme has been extended to all districts in a phased manner, with the vision of forming and nurturing around 60,000 sustainable SHG’s covering about 10 lakhs women over the project period in Tamil Nadu.

Mahalir Thittam Vision

The vision of the project is to reach out and empower 10,00,000 women below the poverty line through 60,000 self-reliant and sustainable Self Help Groups.

These groups would to begin with be involved in savings and credit activities. Later on they would not only engage in productive economic and social activities, but also function as important sustainable, democratic and women-managed institutions. These SHGs would be instrumental in assimilation and dissemination of knowledge about health, nutrition, literacy, womens' rights, child care, education, adoption of new agricultural practices, farm and non-farm sector economic activities, etc., and pave the way for increased participation of women in decision-making in households, community and the local democratic setup besides helping to prepare women to take up leadership positions.

MAHALIR THITTAM MISSION STATEMENT

Project Objectives:

This project plans to set in motion processes that empower women in all spheres of their lives. The strategy we adopt therefore must encourage, motivate and impel women to take control of their lives, create space for themselves and participate in decision-making at all levels. The objectives of the project, focussed on poor & disadvantaged women are:

• Social empowerment through
• Equal status, participation & powers of decision-making of women in household
• Equal status, participation & powers of decision-making in community and village
• Breaking social, cultural & religious barriers to equal development of women/girls
• Increased status, participation & powers of decision-making in democratic institutions
• Economic empowerment through
• Greater access to financial resources outside household
• Reduced vulnerability of the poor women to crisis - famine, flood, riots, etc.
• Significant increase in the woman's own income
• Equal access and control over resources at the household level
• Financial self reliance of women
• Capacity Building (is a strategy and an end in itself) through
• Better awareness on health, education, environment, etc.
• Improved Functional literacy, numeracy
• Better communication skills
• Better Leadership skills
• Self-help & mutual help

Such empowerment of the poor and disadvantaged women would lead to benefits at two levels - one, direct benefits to the individual women and women’s groups; and two, ripple-effect development benefits for other poor families, the community and the village as a whole.

Empowerment of Women - a definition

Empowerment of women is a pressing need of the day. Unfortunately, it is least understood. It is therefore very essential to define empowerment for the benefit of all partners:

Empowerment

1. Empowerment is about people - both women and men - taking control over their lives: becoming conscious of their own situation and position, setting their own agendas, creating space for themselves, gaining skills, building self-confidence, solving problems, and developing self-reliance. It is not only a social and political process, but an individual one as well - and it is not only a process but an outcome too.
2. Outsiders cannot empower women : only women can empower themselves, to make choices or to speak out on their own behalf. However, institutions, NGOs and Government agencies, can support processes that increase women's self-confidence, develop their self-reliance, and help them set their own agendas.

Philosophy behind Every Project Strategy:

Though the project objectives can be approached through varied strategies, we expect all strategies to be subscribe to the following core philosophy:

• Women-centeredness - strategies to be dictated only by the needs, convenience, well-being and future of the SHG women.
• Participatory Learning and Action - strategies are dynamic & subject to changes based on changing needs of women and new learning, assessed periodically & jointly with all stakeholders, following the: reflect-->plan-->implement-->evaluate-->reflect-->change-->implement cycle.
• Holistic - in approach by ensuring that project strategies meet practical and strategic needs of women (and not patchy or narrow as most programmes tend to be)
• Focus only on Sustainable options - all strategies must pass the test of sustainability

Mahalir Thittam – a women-centric approach to development

Project Strategy for Poor Women & SHGs:

• Development of strong, cohesive, Self-help Women Groups, through inculcation of the spirit of Mutual Help, Self-help and team spirit.
• Reduced vulnerability to crisis by inculcating habit of regular savings.
• Getting out of money-lender’s clutches, by regular savings & internal rotation of savings.
• Increased asset-base and income, through access to inexpensive and timely credit.
• Improved access to vital credit for economic activities by making SHGs credit worthy and bankable.
• Making SHGs credit worthy by making SHGs adopt principles of financial discipline (of timely savings and prompt loan repayments).
• Financial self sufficiency and sustainability by building up of SHG corpus and building ability to meet SHGs costs on their own, over a period of time.
• Increased access and control over resources at household level through income-generating activities and access to credit.
• Increased access to financial resources through linking and encouraging need-based tapping of alternate credit delivery systems - like NGO funds, HDFC housing loans, RMK, etc.
• Improved access of SHG members to various governmental, development schemes and bank credit, by forging sustainable linkages of SHGs with banks, Govt. departments, etc.
• Self-confidence building and improved communication skills through training, increased mobility, exposure & collective action.
• Increasing Social Awareness, through motivation, intermingling, networking, exposure and participation in Social Action/Reformation Programmes.
• Improved Status of women in the family and society, through access to credit, increased control over resources, improved skills and collective action.
• Bringing out hidden talents by constant motivation and providing opportunities
• Improved opportunities for self development by breaking social & cultural barriers and inhibitions;
• Improvement in Health and Family Welfare, through awareness, training and exposure.
• Improved Functional Literacy (incl. numeracy) through training, exposure and practice.
• Awareness of Legal rights and legal aid access, through networking & training..
• Overall leadership development, through exposure to SHG management by conscious rotation of responsibilities.
• Change from worker status to worker-manager status, by motivating them to assume control over their lives.
• Development of business competence, through enterpreneurship training, facilitating participation in exhibitions, collective negotiation/bargaining, facilitate emergence of structures like marketing unions and dissemination of information on markets.
• Enable access the power of collective action through formation of Womens’ Federations at various levels.
• High degree of self-reliance through building of capacity of women to handle administration of SHG affairs on their own.
• Greater participation and decision-making in local democratic institutions like Panchayats through participation in Graama Sabhas initially and perhaps by some becoming elected representatives later.

Benefits for Community and Village - through ripple effect:

• Spread of the spirit of self-help and team spirit among all other villagers.

• Higher Social Capital - due to increased and active participation of women in local development through collective action.
• Model effect, wherein other poor women begin to form similar groups seeing the success of the older SHGs.
• Improved health and family welfare, through better awareness.
• Better Education for children and Literacy due to increased awareness.
• Knowledge of various welfare programmes of Government and banks in villages.
• Voicing and acting against social injustices and violence against women and children.
• Women become vocal and gain confidence.
• Economic development due to better economic status of families.
• Abolition of Bonded Labour and Child Labour through increased awareness and improved economic status.
• Environment consciousness and conservation of natural resources through increased awareness.
• Communal harmony, caste harmony through formation of mixed caste SHGs.
• Eradication of evils of alcohol and dowry, through community action mobilised by SHGs.