How
shy
Group helps the
poor
Answers
Answer:
Structure and purpose of self-help groups
Empowering women is the solution to many problems on a global level starting from poverty. Societies that take the effort to empower women to show better development indices, are better governed, more stable, and are less prone to violence. On the other hand, societies that limit women’s educational and employment opportunities and where women’s political voices are poorer are more prone to corruption.
In India, the self-help group mechanism remains the most popular model for empowering village women through financial access and provision of other services. A typical Indian self-help group consists of 10-20 poor women from similar socio-economic backgrounds who pool their savings into a fund from which they can carry out essential activities. They can borrow money to buy medicine, start a business, purchase animals, pay school fees, buy clothing, buy food during the lean season or invest in agriculture. They meet once a month and discuss issues of mutual importance thereby enriching each other. They are usually small, self-selected, with unrelated members that attend regular meetings and do regular savings. Once groups have mastered the mechanics of savings and lending, and have accumulated a fair amount of capital they began making small loans to members. The women cross-guarantee each other’s debts.