Tips for Field Worker s Vol 2 - Vanbandhu Kalyan Yojana

The “Adolescent groups” (all Swa-Shakti SHGs which are
more than one year old, but less than three years o ld) may
show following major characteristics:
Their expectations from the Project are very high, now
they want results from the field worker. Their
expectations may be good quality of training, help for
income generation activities, exposure visits, assistance
for local problems, etc.;
They are very vocal and confident;
It is very difficult to handle them;
When they find that the field worker does not have
capacity to help them or the Project is not able to offer
them the required help, some of the members start
leaving the group. Some reduction in number of groups
or membership size is expected at this stage;
Many NGOs and their field workers do not have much
experience of handling the SHGs which are passing
through this phase;
The NGO officials and DPM should frequently tour, meet
these SHGs and try to assess their quality. Monitoring
of numbers like number of SHGs formed, average
attendance, etc. will not give much information on the
expectations of SHGs, level of help needed by them and
whether the field worker has the capacity to help the
SHGs during this stage;
Emphasis should be on the core activities like income
generation, bank linkage, convergence of schemes of
other departments and networking at cluster level. These
core activities are described in detail in subsequent
chapters;
The facility for community assets creation would be very
important at this stage;
It is easier to stabilize the SHGs if they are involved in
some form of community activities like monitoring of
the school teachers, cleaning of village road, pond, etc.
Once the women members are involved in such activities,
they would be under self-pressure to remain part of the
group, otherwise their reputation in the village will suffer
and others will laugh at them;
The withdrawal strategy of Project should be
SWA-SHAKTI
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