Strengthening Women’s Involvement
in Technology Based Livelihoods
 

For the last 27 years Development Alternatives (DA) has been working towards for the betterment of themarginalised section of the society. From the very beginning DA has been steadily trying to create new economic opportunities, particularly for unskilled and unemployed youth and women. Many DA projects have led to new and effective solutions for women, giving hope to the 50% of the population of the country, from giving voice to voiceless through dialogue to tackling problems of trafficking of women (adopted by UNDP and USAID), minimising health hazards from pollution and creating new job opportunities for people suffering from HIV/AIDS, lack of education and growing resource scarcities.

DA provides its solution to the rural communities, especially for women, through its major programmes like basic need fulfillment (water, energy and habitat), skill development, literacy, employment generation, enterprise development, natural resource management and strengthening institutions.

DA aims to create and support effective and resilient institutions such as strong and sustainable women’s Self-Help Groups and their apex bodies. An important component to achieve that goal is gender integration, which includes staff sensitisation, community mobilisation, studies, policy influence and advocacy. An enabling environment for women that sensitises the men, the local government and other institutions through radio and video programmes, as well as training is a necessary ingredient. Women’s capabilities are to be enhanced through demand-driven training, participation in local governance, health, hygiene and childcare, and family life education for adolescent boys and girls. It would also increase access to entitlements guaranteed by the central and state governments.

With half the population (and two-thirds of the women) in rural India unable to read or write, literacy training is a highly effective tool for empowering the rural poor to make informed, environment friendly choices. DA’s literacy invention TARA Akshar is a highly acclaimed literacy course that enables adult illiterates to read and write in just five weeks. Every month, this programme enables 5,000 women to attain literacy. From January 2007 until October 2009, DA has made more than 56,000 women literate through its 300 literacy centres across northern India.

Under the Swashakti project (2000 – 2001), an on going programme is the Madhya Pradesh Mahila Arthik Vikas Nigam, Tikamgarh (Government of India), aiming at building capacities of women through Self Help Groups. The project in Niwari block, covering approximately 21 villages, comprises training of the project staff, diagnostic survey in the field, networking and rapport building with the stakeholders, regular village meetings, capacity building (training of the group representatives), economic development and formation of association of clusters and monitoring and evaluation.

In the period June 2005 to March 2006, DA has taken up a project called Building Livelihoods for Trafficking HIV Prone Communities with the support of UNDP TAHA (Prevention of Trafficking, HIV and AIDS in women and girls). The TAHA project emerged out of consultation with the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), the Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD), a range of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and the media, as a concrete response to the issues relating to trafficking and HIV. DA implemented this project in 210 sites of 21 districts spread across the 3 States of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. The strategic role of DA in this project was of project design, project planning, extensive capacity building of CSOs as well as target communities on livelihood skills, targeted interventions, condom social programming and monitoring of the interventions among 17 CSO partners. The project has made a fathomable change in the lives of the target communities and has succeeded in initiating a stakeholder platform for scaling up the interventions.

The Trade Related Entrepreneurship Assistance and Development (TREAD) for women’s groups in Madhya Pradesh have been operationalised by the Rajiv Gandhi Gram Udyog Mission. The framework for the TREAD programme has then been formulated by Development Alternatives. It involves setting up of women entrepreneurs as individuals or in groups, based on livelihood technologies that can be replicated within the framework of small and micro enterprises. One of the technology areas that have been chosen for special attention is the manufacture of handmade recycled paper and paper products. Development Alternatives has conceived four projects based on varying entrepreneurial models.

USAID had commissioned DA to conduct a study in two States, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand in 2006-2007. The title of the project was Strengthening Livelihoods of Trafficking Prone Communities. These two States exhibited high incidence of trafficking due to various causes, including the porosity of bordering areas. The main focus of the study was to identify specific vulnerable groups and communities, to analyse their livelihood situation and provide a framework for action. The vulnerability context was developed through this quality study and a framework was designed to deal with the problem in question. The framework proposed for creation of Livelihood Nuclei and Integrated Resource Centres for enhancing the livelihood opportunities through capacity building of women and adolescent girls by imparting skills to them and linking such skills with income-generating activities.

The idea was approved by USAID and the model - suggested after research for strengthening livelihood of trafficking prone communities - was taken up and pilot tested in Uttarakhand as part of Action Research, by arranging for a non-SHG entrepreneurial model through setting up of an Integrated Resource Centre for activities like textile production including zardosi work and tailoring, food processing and computer education, all aimed at livelihood enhancement. This unit was primarily set up for women who were also given entrepreneurial skills to run the unit on their own. This was an effort towards prevention of trafficking by providing women with alternate livelihood options.

Under the Tejaswini (2008-2011) Project, the vision is to create and support effective and resilient institutions, i.e., strong and sustainable Women Self Help Groups and their apex organisations. More than 350 Self Help Groups (SHGs) were set up under this project. The potential beneficiaries of the project are 6000 rural women. The project would go on to facilitate access to micro-finance services to the SHGs, promote new and improved livelihood demand-based opportunities, provide access to functional education, support labour-saving infrastructure, and facilitate women’s participation in local governance. The following major components were included in the project:

• Grassroots Institution Building
• Micro-Finance Services
• Livelihood and Enterprise Development
• Women’s Empowerment and Social Equity

Under the NABARD Self Help Group project, 25 villages in Babina and Baragaon block in Jhansi district and 75 villages in Niwari block have been covered. Ten villages in Orchha are covered under the women SHG cluster to manage livestock. Under this project, approximately 3,000 women in Jhansi and Tikamgarh district of Madhya Pradesh have benefited from the efforts.

The Department of Bio-Technology Livestock Development Project (2007-11)

This project aims at promoting livestock development among the marginalised women in particular and among the rural population in general in the Niwari block of Tikamgarh district of Bundelkhand in Madhya Pradesh. The project involved rural women from 10 selected villages of the Niwari block for promotion of livestock-based livelihood opportu-nities. The project demonstrated technologically sound and modern and yet environmentally friendly and sustainable methods of livestock rearing and fodder cultivation. In all, 500 rural women are the potential beneficiaries of this project.

DA is currently managing the design and implementation of a Sustainable Community Development Programme in WADI town and surrounding five villages in Gulbarga District, Karnataka, supported by ACC limited for the overall development of the community around its cement plant in Wadi. During the second year of the project, out of the target 8021 households, around 1200 (13%) households focusing on women and children were covered under various interventions as below:

• 326 women were trained in the SHG concept – trainings in leadership, bookkeeping, etc.
• 79 youth were trained under life skill training programmes from all the SCDP villages
• 125 youth were trained under vocational training programmes
• 41 families were covered under tree-based farming, seed plots
• 1200 students were oriented about CLEAN-India programmes
• 33 youth were trained in poultry rearing training
• 33 households were supported with improved cook stoves
• 61 persons were trained in wealth from waste training

Establishing an Enterprise Incubator for Rural Women

The primary aim of these projects is to design a model for delivery of energy based technological services oriented to support family based livelihoods. These services bring about a higher value addition to resources and work processes; reflected in higher incomes for women from the Prajapati community and weaker sections in Datia, Madhya Pradesh. The technological services comprised energy based enterprises, building material enterprises and village-based economic activities.

The Women Energy Cluster has been formulated under the Sustainable Civil Society Initiative. The programme aims at empowering women at a level so that they can acquire an enhanced stake in natural resource management and economic value addition. This will be done by empowering a group of women and institutionalising them in women energy clusters (WECs) which will then act as change makers in the society. Approximately 40 members of women’s Self Help Groups representing 5 to 6 villages own and manage one Energy Services Cluster/hub (Shri Ram Raja Gaushala) for which an institutional and financial model - including leveraging of carbon finance - is demonstrated, validated and available for replication. WEC will provide energy source for 6-8 livelihood enterprises engaging 30 to 40 women.

The TARA Paper Recycling Technology (Community Model) is one of the environmentally sound technologies of the DA Group. It has the capability of recycling waste materials to produce good quality handmade paper and creating sustainable livelihoods in large numbers. The DA Group has also set up one unit for demonstration and for constant research and development and improvement in product development in TARAgram, Orchha, Madhya Pradesh which provides on the site training for youth and women. It also provides livelihoods to more than 40 Saharia tribal women.

Under the Microsoft Unlimited Potential, 3712 women were trained in IT skills and another 91 women were recruited and trained in other aspects of IT.

Under the aegis of DA, 43,500 Community Based organisations (CBOs) have evolved during the Poorest Area Civil Society (PACS) Programme implementation across the States. A majority of the CBOs can broadly be divided into Self Help Groups (SHGs) comprising mostly women.

The Arghyam Water for all Project has ensured that 3000 households in 10 villages now have assured water supply for drinking and household activities through piped water services. q

Sushmita Das
sdas@devalt.org