Make self- help Groups of Women a Milestone of development

Let me start by asking you a question, have you seen a small child who has just started to walk and is afraid of being asked the question from her parent –

“ Hey! Stop! Where are you running so fast, my child ?”.

The parents know that the child need to walk but fear of falling is also seen in the mind of parents .The fear of falling and being scolded by the parents may not be always lurking in the mind of the child , who might have just tried to walk.

In all the probabilities, we are in the same frame of mind when we ask this question –

 Why do we need to sustain the self- help groups of the rural women?

I am putting stress on the word  “ rural ” with special reference to the areas which has some or any of the following features in its socio-geographical make up :-

• The place is at least ten kilometers away from the nearest town or city;
• The majority of the people residing there are dependent or living from the incomes coming from agriculture;
• The basic-infrastructure like bank, schools, marketplace, telephones, electricity , hospitals, shops and roads have a limited access ( whatever may this term mean to you ) to all the people residing there and
• The history of not encouraging or discouraging the involvement of the women and children in any public or major events of this place is also to be considered in this environment.

When we are now thus clear as to what I mean by a rural area let us also look into the possible or probable reasons of the formation of the self- help groups in the areas falling under rural categories.

The reasons could have been the following: -

i.       Announcement through the various Panchayati or State government functionaries about the availability of the various schemes that can be accessed after forming a small groups of women as in the S.G.S.Y., etc.

ii.      The presence of any or many non - government organizations( N.G.O.s )  in the area which may be encouraging the formation of the self- help groups( S.H.G.s) for all the residents kinds ( women, men, youth and children) of the area ;

iii.     The encouragement attained after coming in contact with the like- minded persons in the locality who might have already formed these kinds of groups in the recent past and who must have been operating them practically well.

The Merits and demerits of ALL the above processes have long been debated and already been discussed by many experts on this subject hence, I shall leave it to the wisdom of the reader to decide as to which process is best suited for her area and knowledge for the practice for the formation of the self- help groups for women, in particular.