Community Empowerment by Dr. SBM Prasanna, Dr. K Puttaraju, Dr.MS Mahadevaswamy (books under 200 pages TXT) 📕

(ii) Group Method:

In this method the extension worker should visit the grass root areas by arranging demonstrations, group meeting, focus group discussions, small group training, field visit, study tour etc., for women groups or DWCRA groups or IKP. The size may be from 50 to 100 members and bring structural and socio-economic changes in the rural areas.

(iii) Mass Method:

a. News letter:

Women from the poor marginalized communities are trained to become community reporters. Women gather news by travelling across many mandals, write and edit their new paper. The community news letter is an ongoing process and it contains case studies, caste politics, stories about their own lives, livelihoods etc.

These practices raise skills, initiation, understanding of their problems, curiosity in solving them and awareness generation on crucial development areas.

b. Community Radio: (mana radio)

This community radio used by the women groups as an instrument for enhancing their livelihoods had fought many gender and socio-economic battles, including gender/caste discrimination, problems of rural economy.

A simple transmitter based radio equipment to cover a village and the women getting trained in producing and handling programming including voice modulation, script writing, broadcasting techniques and developing programming content would be of great importance. They discuss local news, regional issues, agricultural practices and other income generating activities.

c) Community Theatres – Kalajatha:

Kalajatha, the popular name for rural theater which covers the gamut of rural art forms is used effectively for information dissemination on development and issues.

d) Television:

Television has emerged as probably the most powerful mass medium for disseminating information speedily. It is suitable for creating general awareness buildup desirable change in attitude and reinforce learning. Around 93 percent of population is covered by television network.

e) Information and Communication Technology (ICT):

ICTs are important tools to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. It will articulate women at the grass roots, their experiences, concerns, perceptions, needs and provide necessary information, insights to transform them into active conscious and confident participants in the community.

VI. Participatory interventions for the empowerment of rural women

Formation of Women’s Groups: Women are strong in groups. To counter powerlessness and lack of participation in development process they need collective effort to achieve self confidence and self image.

Initially, Deccan Development Society (DDS) working in Medak district of Andhra Pradesh focused on men for their upgradation of technical expertise. The women questioned this and with the support of DDS they demanded for the establishment of women’s sangams for thrift activities. It was noticed as a visible difference between men’s groups and women’s groups. Women are effective, honest and not defaulters for the repayment of small loans taken for household purposes. Then DDS changed its focus and targeted for the empowerment of village women which was responsible for their self confidence and self worth.

In another instance, while discussing about the choice of income generating activities, women opted to buy buffaloes, while men wanted to buy grains. According to women, buffaloes would provide not only milk for personal consumption and selling purposes but also for dung whereas buying grain would have lead to only one time consumption.

Self Help: Recently the concept of ‘self help’ has taken different manifestation for the economic empowerment of women. It raises effective participation, control and authority over their affairs. It would provide exchange of experiences individually and collectively.

Skill Development: Skill in farming sector for women raise their productivity, participation and empowerment.

Under watershed development programme, small arable land was given to some landless women groups on lease basis for a family of four. Training inputs were given on green manure, recycled waste and other related techniques, with the intention to raise productivity and ensure food security.

The impact of the project was pointed out by Seema Kulkarni, an activist that it contributed:

Greater self confidence and more negotiating skills within the family.

Leadership qualities among the group members and

Access to information and rapport development with local Government Officials.

Networking: Networking with NGOs and GOs in addressing pressing need of women’s issues on farming sector and national resources management actually promoted women’s voice to facilitate different schemes for community development. They can demand for more benefits and recognized them as a legitimate constituents.

Adoption of villages: Adoption of villages by the Government or NGOs for its development and provision of certain special programmes to overcome certain critical issues, to provide basic needs and safety nets in the rural areas is important. It is also necessary to improve the involvement of people to participate for the development of villages.

Utthan was an organization established in 1980s to conserve and convert saline land into productive land, to solve water crisis and to provide economic empowerment for women’s groups at Bhavnagar city, Gujarat.

Few villages were selected to solve the problems of water scarcity by involving SHG women in “Pani Samitis”, the support given by Utthan team where women actively participated in thrift, worked of the people and facilitated accessibility of domestic water.

The women managed effectively and saved saved 5 hours of time per day in collecting water. As a result the female heads used the saved time for income generation, retention rates of girls increased, had sufficient time to participate in community programmes, training programmes and exposure visits provided by Utthan. Thus the women actively involved in the construction and supervision of water infrastructure.

Interventions for empowerment of rural women:

Formation of information groups: Form information groups in the grassroot areas for exchange of information among the women. The Group leaders and members have to be trained in information collection and dissemination and in turn apply in the community media channels.

Steps involved:

Trained catalyst.

Bi-weekly newsletter.

Performance appraisal of each group.

It encourage information dissemination within the community, a bi-weekly newsletter can be published on the lives and achievements of women. These groups are responsible for exchange of experiences, common ground for decisions and give more control of their lives. It provides an opportunity to advocate changes in policies, attitudes of social behaviour or customs that affect the gender friendly media policy.

Conclusion

Participatory communication in the rural areas would raise women’s participation in the development process of the rural sector and reduce the gender gap. Different methods of communication strategies involve the rural women to create equitable and self sustaining socio-economic system. The participatory communication reduces the power relations between men and women and there by transform the rural scenario. This will bring ‘a more informed citizenry is in a better position to exercise its rights and better able to carry out its responsibilities within the community’ which are essential for the empowerment of rural women.

References:

Aggarwal V. B. (1992) Mass Media in Rural Development – Some Research Issues, Communicator 27(4): 14-15.

Bhagyalakshmi J (2001) Meeting Communication Needs of Rural Women, Yojana, October.

Ranjani K Murthy (ed) (2001) Building Women Capacities – Interventions in Gender Transformation, Sage Publications, New Delhi.

Singh A. K. (2000) Agricultural Extension: Impact and Assessment AGROBIOs India, New Delhi.

Swaminathan M. S. (2005) Connecting Rural India, Hindu, Chennai, 19th October.

White, S.A. (1994). The Concept of Participation: Transforming Rhetoric to Reality in White, S.A. et al (1994) Paticipatory Communication: Working for Change and Development, Sage Publications, New Delhi, India.

Social Capital Development for Empowerment of women: A study on SHG Women in Chittoor District

Prof. R. Jayasree

Dept. of women’s studies, Sri Padmavati Mahila Visvavidyalaym Tirupati

Social capital is broadly defined as ‘the institution, relationships, attitudes and values that govern interaction among people and contribute to economics and social development. Social capital is the network that helps to create linkages that in turn forge rules, conventions and norms governing the development process at different levels in all societies. It is the network of relationships between the agents within an economy.Social capital is the expected collective or economic benefits derived from the preferential treatment and Co-operation between individual and groups. Social capital can increase productivity both individual and collective through, social contacts.

Mahyar Arefi (2004) identifies consensus building as a direct positive indicator of social capital. Consensus implies shared interest and agreement among various actors and stakeholders to induce collective action. Collective action is an indicator of increased social capital. Social capital has multiple dimension and definitions. It has been used at various times to explain superior managerial performances, the growth of entrepreneurial firms, improved performance of functionally diverse groups. Early attempts to define social capital focused on the degree to which social capital as a resource should be used for public good or for the benefits of individuals.

According to Robert Putnam, social capital refers to the collective value of all social networks and the intimations that arise from these networks to do things for each other .Social capital is a key component to building and maintain democracy. He believes that social capital can be measured by the amount of trust and reciprocity in a community or between individuals. Putnam suggested that social capital would facilitate co-operation and mutually supportive relation in communities and nation and would therefore be a valuable means of combating many of the social disorders inherent in modern societies. Social capital is anything that facilitates individual or collective action generated by networks of relationships , reciprocity trust and social norms. The social capital foundation suggested that social capital should not be mixed up with its manifestations. Social capital is often understood as the networks that a person possesses and that he / she may use in social integration purpose. According to Coleman social capital is a neutral resource that facilitates any manner of action, but whether society is better off as a result depends entirely on the individual uses to which it is put.

According to Fukuyama (1999) social capital can be defined simply as a set of informed values or norms shared among members of a group that permits Co-operation among them. Social capital refers to the institutions, relationship and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society’s social interactions. Social relationship between the members of a community help them to bring together as a common entity. The value of good interaction and relationships within the community and with the other people can consider as a ‘capital’. Social Capital refers to the relationship between people and not just people themselves. It is an invisible form of capital as it is build upon unseen social structures and relationships that form the foundation of network.

Social capital can be good for the public as well as private is the cost and benefits of the individuals connections. The social activities done by the group members and their efforts may lead to the common community. Civic engagements and social capital are interrelated because frequent interaction among various types of people tends to produce a norm of reciprocity. Social networks and reciprocity make possible a norm of generalized benefit. Social capital is a necessary compliment to natural physical, political and human capitals. It is not enough to construct infrastructure facilities to enhance economic growth of the community. It may be developed as a byproduct of other activities as well as purposively. It also consists of the acquisition of new capacities as well as the learning of constraints. Many of the skills a person acquires involve the imposition of discipline upon oneself. Social capital is a relation based resource in the sense that it exists not as a property of individuals but in their relations with other individuals.

In the above context the present paper tries to analyse the dimension of social capital and its impact of empowerment among the SHG women.

The present paper is based on an empirical study carried out in Chittoor District of Andhra Pradesh. A sample of 300 SHG women were selected from Tirupati and Chittoor Division of Chittoor District. To study the dimensions of social capital and empowerment ,the variables selected were :- networking, participation and social empowerment ; Self reliance and self confidence; Trust and solidarity; political participation and political empowerment.

Social Networking and participation among SHG Women :-

Networking and participation referenced to the informal networks that leads to the exchange of information and resources with in the members of the SHG group and the community their Co-operation, Co-ordination and mutual assist that