Women Empowerment

 

Empowering Women in Rural Haryana

Arpana continues its efforts to strengthen the poorest of the poor families in 108 villages in 4 Blocks of Karnal District. Arpana has facilitated 1053 self-help groups, with over 15,000 women members, enabling them to improve their socio-economic condition through savings, micro-credit loans, income generating activities, etc.

Achievements of Women’s Self-Help Groups

 Women’s self-help groups are gaining stability and adopting new processes. They can now conduct difficult bank transactions, including cashless, digital transfers in case of loans, etc. The savings of women are increasing. The collective cumulative savings of 1053 self-help groups is ₹675,279,905. All these factors combine to generate confidence and new energy amongst women members.

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  • Built income sources for their families.
  • Engaged in skill-building activities to enhance their employability capabilities.
  • Built proper homes to replace mud and makeshift shelters.
  • Educated their children.
  • Groups were strengthened.
  • Worked for community health by disseminating crucial health information.
  • Battled challenges collectively, such as gender abuse and domestic violence.
  • Made 7,435 Organic Kitchen Gardens.

 Building Capacities and Skills

The regular monthly training trainer workshop is a vital part of the empowerment process. Women’s confidence, communication skills, public speaking capacities, and general knowledge base are fostered. They also gain, an incrementally understanding of the entire structure, functioning of SHGs, their federation, and a spectrum of other issues.

Special Workshops for New Groups – After participatory feedback sessions, workshops were developed for new groups to understand rules and records and cashless transactions.

  • In May 2023, 235 volunteers from 133 SHG groups formed recently in 2023-24 participated in a special day-long workshop.
  • In May, 60 volunteers from 31 SHG groups attended a day-long workshop on group norms, roles, cashless transactions, attendance, and record-keeping recently formed in 2022-23.
  • On September 30th, a full-day training session took place in Islam Nagar for 58 literate members from 12 new SHGs.

Federations of Women’s Self-Help Groups

The Vikas and the Unnati Federations are formed from the 1,053 Self-Help Groups. These have become platforms for women’s voices to be heard in local and District venues. The Arpana team supports and guides both Executive Committees of the Federations in their spending decisions and prioritizes the key issues to empower SHG members. Federations develop SHG volunteers to become effective peer educators, thereby developing skills among village-level leaders.

The Federations are now financially supporting activities like capacity building of trainers, monitoring of groups, and evaluation of groups by trainers and becoming financially sustainable. Each Federation has a monthly meeting during which loans are passed or rejected according to the worthiness of the applicant SHG. The Executive Committees of the two Federations took up the following matters.

  • Status of loan repayment, status of new loans sectioned, and ensuring receipt of loans.
  • Progress of new initiatives of village-level monitors to start village-level agenda training.
  • The prepared budget for 2023 -2024 and Taking feedback from every monthly meeting
  • The prevention of diseases caused by contaminated water and contaminated food.
  • Training of manpower development of new groups to overcome their deficiencies.

Liaising & Networking

  • Empowering Women through Banking Solutions: Thousands of women have opened their first bank accounts through their SHG savings. Moreover, their Federations, representing over 15,000 women, also have accounts and extensive dealing with the banks.

    But, since women are finding certain difficulties in their dealings with their banks, Mr. Ish Bhatnagar met with top Bank of India officials and discussed problems faced by Arpana's Self Help Group women. 

  • Facilitating Solutions: Mr. Khanduja met the Lead District Manager, Karnal, and made significant progress in resolving the problems. Meetings were also conducted with Bank Managers from PNB Choura, Canara Bank Barsat, Gramin Bank Kunjpura, and State Bank of India Nagla Chowk. Mr. Khanduja also organized two financial literacy sessions for SHG women on 7th May 2023.

7,435 Kitchen Gardens and 3,491 Trees Planted!

A Haryana Government Health Department Survey revealed high anemia rates: 70% of children (6-59 months) and 61% of non-pregnant women (15-49 years) are anemic.

To combat anemia, Arpana promoted kitchen gardens in our 108 target villages, involving 2,080 women from 1,042 Self-Help Groups. Arpana’s goal is to generate awareness about enhancing family health benefits by planting vegetables in their own kitchen gardens.

Tree Plantation: With great joy and enthusiasm, SHG women from 2,491 self-help groups in 82 villages, planted 3,491 trees in their villages in October. This initiative was a collective effort of Arpana and both SHG Federations. It not only reflects their commitment to the environment but also underscores the transformative power of community-led initiatives.