SELF-HELP GROUPS AND CAPACITY BUILDING OF ITS MEMBERS IN HATHRAS DISTRICT OF UTTAR PRADESH

Abstract

Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have proved to be an effective instrument in India to address the problem of poverty on the one hand and also empower women on the other. The main aim of this paper is to know the aspects of capacity building of self-help group members. It is expected to empower women economically and also socially in terms of, say, fighting for their rights, fighting against the social evils like gender bias, child labour, violence against women, secondary status assigned to women, dowry and crimes against women. It is true that the overall empowerment depends on the economic empowerment and as such women primarily concentrate on savings and then they extend their coverage to various other aspects including health, nutrition, environment, forestry, and agriculture. By providing independent sources of income outside home, micro-credit tends to lessen economic dependency of women on their husbands and thus help improve autonomy. Micro-credit programmes, by providing control over material resources, raise women’s prestige and status in the eyes of their husbands and there by promote inter-spouse consultations. Medium levels of economic development have occurred through such change as there is more independence now than before. There is capacity building of SHG members as in aspect of changes in women’s mobility and social interactions; changes in women’s labour patterns; changes in women’s access to and control over resources and changes in women’s control for decision-making. The micro-finance contributes to many developmental aspects among women. It has been realized from the study, as well as from other case studies which have been done in different districts of Uttar Pradesh, that it has resulted in significant increase in income among women from their own economic activities; enabling women to have control over their earnings, especially giving them a choice over the use of such income; enabling women to negotiate and bring out an improvement in their well-being within the household; and enabling women to form or support a networking, which helps them in protecting their person and collective interests at the micro levels and macro levels.