Why women collectives can work in India

Women empowerment is an oft-used term in the development discourse. However, what constitutes women empowerment and how it should be measured is still not very clear.

There exists no exact index to measure it even though attempts have been made both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Quantitative measures have included levels of education or fertility and qualitative indices have made an attempt to measure mobility, political participation or freedom regarding their reproductive choices.

Yet, "women empowerment" serves as a good indicator when it comes to measuring how other development indices are faring.

Women empowerment has been found to be positively correlated to children's education and the number of years spent in school, lower fertility and better nutrition outcomes for the family. 

Besides, an empowered woman marries later, is more likely to be educated and be better employed, more likely to make informed choices and be aware of her civil and political rights.

Moreover, empowered women are more likely to adopt newer technologies, experiment with newer methods in health and agriculture, use contraceptives and menstrual pads and toilets and send their children to school.

When policy makers and development practitioners discuss women empowerment, they try and think of practical policy-oriented solutions through which it can be achieved.

When non-profit NGO Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana (RGMVP) approached this issue they decided to experiment with collectives.

After all, if a single empowered woman can change her destiny and the lives around her, imagine what the collective strength of many women can achieve.

The idea was simple, adapt the existing microfinance model of self-help groups (SHGs) and use it to deliver not just banking, saving and other financial services, but also health, education and awareness about civil and political rights.

The facilitators and leaders are drawn from the community and they, in turn, help their peers develop their leadership potential, making the programme self-sustainable.

Particularly interesting is the model of Swasthya Sakhi Programme, translating to friend for health - which is an embodiment of community health programme.

The main work of the sakhi is spreading awareness about hygiene and sanitation, healthy behaviours, nutrition, immunisations and maternal and child health.

Since she comes from the community, she is accepted easily and her message resonates more, while complementing the work of ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activists), ANMs (Auxiliary Nursing Midwives) and Aanganwadis.

Sessions of political training are effectively delivered through such collectives.

Training sessions about the Panchayati Raj and its election processes led to around 1,000 rural women of the programme, with no prior political experience, to contest the recent Panchayati Raj elections in Uttar Pradesh.

More than 350 women won and went on to assume the leadership role in their community, prioritising their needs, and emerging as decision-makers in a context where women are sometimes not even allowed to leave their homes without a veil.

The training to prepare women for greater political participation is ongoing with a self-replicating strategy: women who win in turn help the others in their community, not just in terms of accessing their rights and entitlements, but also in becoming future leaders in their own right.

However, one of the most effective and interesting by-products of this approach was that the coming together of women on a common platform helped break rigid feudal hierarchies.

Women connected on shared gender concerns and this led them to finding common and effective solutions.

By questioning the hierarchies imposed on them through casteism and patriarchy, the women freed themselves of bondages and restrictions that had plagued them historically.

It can be seen that women in these SHGs have greater mobility, are less likely to practice seclusion, question patriarchal and discriminatory customs and practices, and this has a cataclysmic effect on other women from the community.

This simple idea of using women collectives to address development outcomes and women empowerment is efficient and self-sustaining.

Here interventions are not top-down, but are allowed to grow and flourish organically from within the community and are wholly owned and managed by them.

If used effectively, this can be a first step towards a concrete achievement in terms of women empowerment.