Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

SHGs as Change Agents in Enhancing the Political Participation 341
Under the Swa-Shakti project, Samarthan has trained field workers
on the role of women in developmental contexts, government schemes,
the process of facilitating SHG formation, the functions and financial
management of SHGs, and entrepreneurship development. Similarly, SSK
has also provided such training. HARC has provided training to motivators
on group management, leadership development, management of
local resources and computer training. It regularly monitors the various
activities of motivators in their villages. Motivators are linked to HARC’s
Resource Centre, and get information on various developmental issues,
which they convey to the village women. Rawain Mahila Manch organises
bimonthly meetings of motivators to share their experiences.
Capacity-building inputs have enabled the field workers/motivators
assess their own work in a larger frame of development and empowerment.
This has helped them develop a vision for their own work and
assign meaning to a number of inputs that they had to provide to SHGs.
Participatory Learning Tools
The capacity-building initiatives were participatory, interactive and inclusive
in nature. The training inputs were a combination of classroom
training, exposure visits and discussions within the group. The themes
and topics for discussion were selected to provide inputs to strengthen
the groups (for example, team building, recording of financial transactions,
et cetera), to raise their awareness about different developmental
issues (for instance health and nutrition of women and children), and on
the functioning of PRIs. The organisations created a variety of learning
opportunities for women including practical learning through study tours,
visits to ‘best-practice’ projects, hands-on training and demonstration projects,
and face-to-face interactions with experts, practitioners, and government
officials. HARC organised exposure visits to different small-scale
industries, which gave women a practical orientation on grading and
packaging. Members of the purchasing committee were taken to an international
trade fair in Delhi, where they could get an opportunity to sell
their products and build marketing linkages with big traders from across
the country. They were also trained at the food-processing unit at
HARC. The aim was to upgrade the technical knowledge and skills of the
members of the federation and the fruit-processing committee, so that
they could utilise the practical knowledge for income-generation activities.