INNOVATIVE DEVELOPMENT SERIES

2. Economic empowerment of women with UNICEF, UNESCO and ILO through YES SHGs, health and education.

[This is a proposal I have prepared and sent to YES Institute, New Delhi (YES Bank) last month after being encouraged by Shri S. L. Kapur, IAS, Retired, Chairman, Yes Institute, New Delhi, Shri Rana Kapoor, Managing Director, Yes Bank, Mumbai and Ms. Preety Sinha, Senior President, Yes Institute, New Delhi as a Group Convenor Member 'GNext-AB' "Website: gnextab.org" which has more than 35 Pan India members mostly retired from IAS, IPS, IRTS, IFS, HCS, as SBI Foundation MD, WHO Chief Controller of Accounts, Scientist, Solicitors, Press Advisers etc. for partnering with YES Bank for the development of 5 villages of Faridabad in Haryana State of India)

Women’s empowerment without financial empowerment is a farce. They need to be associated with each other to multiply their power of camaraderie to enhance their self-esteem. Of late the women have been seen in groups mostly in village areas informally working as Self-Help Groups. In government’s development parlance these are called local groups engaged in economic activities. A Self-Help Group (SHG) is defined by scholars as “a small voluntary association of poor people, preferably from the same socio-economic background. They come together for the purpose of solving their common problems through self-help and mutual help. The SHG promotes small savings among its members. The savings are kept with a bank.” The US sociologists say that ‘a self-help group facilitates continued growth and increased legitimacy, mutual support and voluntary action with mutual aid and cooperation’ for better use of common property assets. In one of the success stories of Pradan, a voluntary organization of Ford Foundation in Gumla district of Jharkhand it has been found that the self-help groups “encouraged the women to save what little they could. The five rupees each woman scraped together over the course of months was the start of community resource-sharing to make investments that have completely changed the prospects of a village Teliya’s 77 families. Pradan focuses on women because they are disproportionately disadvantaged among India’s poor—and incredibly effective at creating change in their communities. Staffs describe how self-help groups spark powerful transformations in these women: They’ve watched as they shed shyness and hesitation to become keen representatives for their communities’ rights and aspirations.” Our Gnext-AB Group has to learn from success stories to adopt the best practices available in the society, but at the same time does not want to make such SHGs powerless in terms of finances as also socially. Therefore, we will form the YES SHGs out of the likeminded women social conglomerates with a mixture of educated and some well educated ones, so that they are able to manage affairs of the YES SHG efficiently and successfully. The support will be provided to them out of the government funds and the proactive role of the Bank. The Gnext-AB Group will work as a facilitator for getting things happen, and happen successfully without any flaw or delay.

 The Gnext-AB Group, though, will consider, but not make it a rule while forming the YES SHGs that the group should be homogeneous, because this will then retard the growth of the YES SHG. However, it will be as far as possible selected from comparable socio-economic background. The Gnext-AB is aware of the challenges in forming an SHG and will take all necessary precautions to minimize conflicts in its formation. Conflicts sometimes germinate from paucity and could be eliminated by generating plenty. It is also observed that if there is no discrimination among members on the basis of family, caste, religion, region or political affiliations, then an SHG could succeed with diversities. The YES SHGs would be formed with 20 members as this number has been found viable and suitable for successful financial management in rural areas. The YES SHG will distribute work to its members according to the member’s capabilities and specialization. The coherent group will take care to involve all, so that all present them for the Group’s collective activities. Transparency and written documentation including the byelaws and of activities will be the watch-word of the YES SHG to generate faith among its members. The Gnext-AB will act as a Self Help Promoting Institution (SHPI) for the group and the bank will guide it. The habit of thrift to save small amounts is key to success for an SHG. The YES SHGs will also work as Credit and Thrift Societies for the members to create corpus of funds in due course for emergency use.

The Bank’s role here is pivotal, because in many cases the SHGs have failed for not getting working capital on time or ever. Here also the Gnext-AB reiterates that the well thought out strategy behind the objective of forming YES SHGs would be to make the women’ informal workforce capable of earning more through capacity building and training, including the skill development. The viable and profit-making skill development schemes for them will be prepared separately for each YES SHG, as we cannot commit a mistake by making many tailors in a village having no customers to get the clothes stitched. One of us has a personal experience of a DRDA, where 475 girls in a Panchayat in a State were shown as trained as tailors and sewing machines distributed to all these girls individually to be taken by them to their in-laws house as dowry. Gnext-AB thinks that skill development should be a means to add to the skill already existing with the worker so that it could be learned formally within a short time, because resources for long period trainings are not provided under Rural Development schemes of the country. Efforts would be made to keep them away from fancy trades just to demonstrate to visiting teams, but the trades so selected would have potential of decent and assured earning for YES SHGs. Stress will be given on the local trades as also the local raw material, technique and the local market for the finished items. First and second level of food processing techniques would be introduced to the YES SHGs, so that the members are able to procure raw material from the local market and process it for the local and nearby town markets. For example the packaging of thoroughly cleaned cereals, pulses, spices, foodgrains etc. with certification that it does not contain any foreign material have good markets and can earn sufficient incomes without exposing working capital to hazard, because these have a long shelf-life and could be stored without risk of physical deterioration.

 Similarly, local vegetables and fruits will be processed at two levels, one in the field and the other in the Workshed. Then these will be graded and packaged for the markets for the middleclass clientele through town outlets provided by the district administration on the pattern of Safal and Mother Dairy in Delhi. A tie-up will also be explored with them for Delhi markets, because Safal in Delhi has been suffering a setback for want of good quality vegetables and fruit items. The YES SHGs will be motivated to work hard to create their own niche in the market by generating their own brands to multiply their incomes. This is a well established market rule that brands earn more. To achieve this target each YES SHG will be tagged to one Master Trainer known as “YES Master” for learning the trade and maintaining the quality of products. The YES Master will be trained regularly by technical persons to refresh and update his or her technical knowledge. The government bears the costs on master trainers, raw material for training and stipend.

           The Gnext-AB with the Bank will try to persuade the government to distribute improved tools to the YES SHGs and stipend to their children along with uniform to enroll and retain them in the schools. A pilot project will be presented to the government for strengthening the YES SHGs and support their wards and families in respect of insurance, oldage pension, good health and good education including musical instruments for cultural growth of the community. The improved tool kits will motivate them to learn quickly as the new tools will engage their attention more seriously. The First Aid Kit will protect them from getting the injuries deteriorated. The uniforms with Bank, Govt. and Group logos decently printed on these and provided by the Bank through another YES Self-Help Group engaged in tailoring will boost their self-esteem. The health cover and education cover as provided by government to the family will further motivate them and retain them in the YES SHG. These measures will improve the health of the family which will help the healthy family to earn more and lose less on account of illness. The education cover will retain the children in schools through books, exercise books, uniforms, good quality tasty mid-day meals prepared by the local YES SHG and the timely payment of school stipend. A government literacy drive will also be started for the YES SHGs by distributing exercise books, slates, chalks, ball pens and literacy bags manufactured by the YES SHGs themselves to teach them achieve functional literacy for work efficiency.

           We also need a Jag Janani Bhawan to provide all facilities at one place for the mothers of the YES World. The solar energy lighted YES MOTHER’S CAMPUS will have Mahila Mandal Office also housing the office of the Federation of Women Societies, a Bal Bhawan, a Common room, a kitchen, a toilet for women, Immunization Centre, Filtered Water, overhead water tank, Aaganbari Kendra, a Biogas Plant, a fisheries tank and nursery of exotic flowers and vegetable raising saplings meant for Angan Mein Van scheme. The budget for Jag Janani Bhawan will be prepared separately after discussions with the government and district administration, because all the activities narrated above fall within the spectrum of schemes provided by the government. We need spaces for women and their children separately so that the mother and the child are treated and cared well. Mother can only be treated well in her own space, because she always aspires for a space which she could claim to be only her with restrictions for others and the child aspires for an unrestricted space with wings to fly high in the sky. Here, the role of UNICEF will also come. As soon as the project is approved by the partnering bank, Government of Haryana and Government of India in its various concerned ministries - particularly the Rural Development and Women and Child Development Ministry - UNICEF, UNESCO and ILO will be invited for their active participation. Recently a very sensitive officer known for innovations and his commitment to the cause of the poor has been posted as the Secretary, Rural Development Ministry, Government of India. And, the Group expects his close and active association with these innovative schemes for YES SHGs.

           To take care of the higher level of training, members with special traits in some special trades in the YES SHGs will be selected and for them Gnext-AB will take steps for conducting special training programme to improve their skills and supporting them to start their own business under StartUp India or StandUp India. The members with good educational background and technical competence may like to start their own YES Businesses, so all necessary support will be provided to them by the Bank with the help of the government. Members seeking to be trained in the Government Women Polytechnics or Industrial Training Institutes will be admitted with the help of the government for one/two year courses to build their capacities to join jobs in government or private sector. Educated members with interest in computer will be trained in computer science and operations to join new jobs. If any of the members wants to be entrepreneur, then she will be facilitated to undergo formal training to become YES Entrepreneur to establish her own business under StartUp India, StandUp India or Make In India scheme of the PM.

           In addition to all these strategies, the Government of India’s wage employment schemes could be targeted to create infrastructure and employment for them. The objective behind these has always been:

 Primary objective:

· Generation of additional gainful, regular and decent employment for the unemployed and underemployed, men and women in rural areas.

Secondary objective:

· Creation of sustained employment by strengthening the rural economic infrastructure creating opportunities for employment.

· Creating common property and equitable economic and social assets.

· Creating assets in favour of the rural poor for their direct and continued benefits.

· Positive impact on wage levels to support bargaining powers of the labour markets.

· Overall improvement in the quality of life in rural area.

            Hence, the project for women empowerment is again a composite scheme to develop not only the trade in them, but their overall personality so that they become good entrepreneurs in due course or create a second entrepreneurial generation. In this project also we can claim that many stake holders will do their jobs efficiently. In the words of Drucker, Peter F. (1989) instead of calling the American courses as “Business and Government” call these as “Business, Government and Many Others”. Similarly we can call it ‘Yes Bank, government and many others’.

The budget estimates prepared for this project are attached at Annexure-2. (Sent to the Bank.)