Gender Equality & Women Empowerment

Gender equality & women empowerment is one of the important activities of Seba Jagat & so various strategies and interventions are incorporated for their sustainable development i.e promotion of SHGs, micro finance, formation and strengthened of women federation, formation of adolescents girls group and supported so that women become part of mainstreaming process and assert themselves against the gender discrimination process.

Achieving Gender Justice Vision

We visualize the emergence of a just social order ,self reliant community in which human rights, dignity of women and men are equally realised through a sustained participatory process based on the values of social justice, empowerment, and equality including gender equalities.

Operational Strategy

Empowerment and capacitation of Marginalised Communities with a special emphasis on women.
Promotion of Sustainable Livelihood and access to and control of resources.
Promotion of Community Health.
Creating separate spaces for women to dialogue and promote self- assertion and increasing their participation in decision making.
To develop People Managed Credit and Marketing System.
Advocacy & Alliance Building.
Other Developmental Measures as Disaster Preparedness, Alternative Energy Options etc.

Self Help Promotional Activity

SHGs have been promoted as an alternative credit unit at village level as well as enhancing economic, social & political position of women in community.

Major Achievement in Self Help Promotional Activity

Bringing the poor & needy women into a common platform.
Sensitising the women about the discriminations they face in all walks of life and the process how they can overcome them.
Change in the mind set and approach in women.
Empoering them economically to lead a dignified life having decision making power.
To have access to PRI, Micro-Finance institution & Government Welfare Schemes.

Seba Jagats Approach To Micro - Finance

Flexible saving allowing customer`s open access to their own savings.
Pro - poor products which meet the needs of low - income households, quick & timely.
Credit for economic as well as consumption purpose, thus providing households with greater flexibility and enabling them to manage contingencies, reduce vulnerability.
A customer responsive approach based on understanding the need for micro - finance and ensuring customer satisfaction.
Zero tolerance approach towards delinquency with community participation.

Strengthen SHGs & Federation

Strengthening of Self Help Groups as a foundation for sustainable development also remained as a major focus area. A majority of programs are intervened through 185 women SHGs in our operational area. The SHGs have constituted to become a viable task force in the rural economy by adapting themselves to a variety of regenerated livelihoods. The federation of SHGs at both cluster level and GP level have been restructured. The restructuring has helped the SHGs and their federations to operate independently. Most of the SHGs have adopted SMACS (Simplified Micro credit Accounting System) instead of traditional set of books.

During this period, the SHGs and their federations have successfully revolved their internal funds as well as the grants provided to them. Linkages with banks have gained momentum. In collaboration with the banks in our operational area, we have developed a strategy to provided credit to the most needy and vulnerable people. To check duplicacy of credit, the information regarding the credit provided to the SHGs have regularly been shared by the banks and our organization.

A federation is a network of several SHGs and a structure or body evolved by SHGs themselves comprising representatives from all member SHGs, with the aim of supporting member SHGs to attain the goals of economic and social empowerment of women members, and their capacity building .

Purpose

Accessing mainstream financial linkages for enhanced access to resources.
Technical and accounts maintenance support to SHGs.
Involvement of community in issues based activities at SHGs federation level.
Ensure sustainability of SHGs.
Promotion of livelihood activities.

SHG Promotion and Strengthening

In forest fringe areas SHG has played a catalytic role in resource management, here women are the real driver of their economic prospective. In these areas, traditionally women play a very vital role not only socially but also economically. A small informal association of poor marginalized families created at grass root level for the purpose on enabling member to reap economic befits out of mutual helps, solidarity and joint responsibility.

It is a represent of unique to financial intermediation and also SHGs represent an opportunity for social action and empowerment through women`s involvement in considering, addressing and participating in issues that affect their members and their communities, including issues that affect women in particular.

We federate them not only fight against social exploitation but developing enterprises focused on sustainable use of existing local resources for enhancing their income level in livelihood prospective.

Presently Self help groups are adopted agriculture as an income generation activity. Most SHGs are linked with local banks for enhancing their livelihood through agriculture and animal husbandry specifically keeping small ruminants like goats. By using of paddle pump they are able to cultivating in their own farm land with verity of vegetables and sell it in the local vending markets. Distress sale is always linking with low return leads the poverty. The federation is played a supportive role in value addition, processing, marketing of agriculture and NTFP produces. Federation processed and making Turmeric power, Millet power, Dal processing in their Common Facility Centre (CFC). They selling it in their own federation outlet, participating in different festivals/mela organized by district administration and other institutions. In convergence they supplied it to different government institutions like ICDC, DSMS, ITDA and all the produces have a good potential demand in outside of the district, they supplied these agencies and institutions in a demand driven process.

The Women Federations at cluster or block level have been formed to take up different issues at village level, at cluster level and at federation level as shown in the table below. During this year the following are the major development of SHGs & Federations of Seba Jagat.