Empowering Women in Communities: Self-Help Groups for Women
Most households in urban slums are nurtured by women, the more marginalized among them in unorganised sector jobs such as coolie workers, vegetable vendors, piece rate workers or domestic workers. When APSA started working in the slums 37 years ago, families were large, and prevalence of alcoholism among men was high. This often led the women to borrow from loan sharks to meet family needs, thus eroding the already-small family income. Banks were unwilling to lend money to ‘people with no identity or address’. Though the government has made financial inclusion a priority agenda, accessible savings systems and credit facilities are still very much out of reach of the poor, particularly in slum communities as people from these sections are considered as bad credit risks.
APSA started Self-Help Groups (SHG) for women in October 1999 in 5 Bengaluru slums, with the project eventually being duplicated in Hyderabad working areas as well. The SHG project provided a mechanism for women to save, to borrow small amounts at reasonable interest rates, thereby to get out of the clutches of moneylenders. APSA urged them to cut down on borrowing for consumer expenditure. APSA’s was one of the first successful SHG projects in Bengaluru city. SHGs provided members with a platform to come together to save and borrow for urgent needs, but also to share with the group about their problems related to children, family, domestic violence, lack of civic amenities. They began to be able to collectively negotiate with local authorities on these issues.
APSA built SHG capacities through training on book-keeping, budgeting, accessing credit from banks and welfare schemes from the government, health and hygiene, child rights, women’s rights and vocational skills. Over the decades, the quality of life of the women and their families has improved with better access to information, facilities and benefits.
APSA’s SHG project has touched the lives of over 50,000 women in Bengaluru and Hyderabad through more than 1,000+ SHGs and 50 SHG Federations. It has resulted in:
• Increased women’s financial and economic power through collective savings (APSA SHGs have accessed INR 12 crore bank credit to benefit around 35,000 women in slums).
• Women’s increased decision-making power in the family.
• Enabled SHG members to take up other income generation activities such as snack vending, selling food, vegetable/ flower/ fruit vending, selling clothes or fabric pieces, tailoring, taking up contracts for solid waste management in parking lots and public roads, taxi driving and valet parking services, etc.
• Motivated SHG members to health-seeking behaviour by attending health camps organized by APSA and seeking referral treatment for minor health issues and RSH.
• Awareness among SHG and Federation members of the power of collective action to address family and community issues and of collective bargaining in dealing with duty-bearers.
• Increased sense of agency among SHGs and Federations in addressing women’s and children’s issues (rescue of women & children trapped in beggary, trafficking, child marriage, child labour, alcohol-related violence, harassment at work or in the family and other abusive situations).
• Ability to access loans from banks through the SHGs, with a record of 90% loan repayment (higher than other bank constituencies), enabling SHG members to renew/ retain or buy homes, domestic appliances, vehicles, jewellery, pay for girl children’s schooling and higher education or pay for their marriages.
• Promotion of women’s social and leadership dimensions in community life (SHG federation leaders, educators in countering gender-based violence, members of school SDMCs, co-trainers in training programmes for communities, etc.).
SHGs and Federations in APSA’s working areas are all child marriage and child labour free. SHGs are aware of the value of girl child and take up the responsibility of sending their children, particularly girl children, to school, for higher education or skill training.
