Poor
Women and Local Governance
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The
village of Degam is approached by a rough, winding and
unpaved road. It is situated in the district of Surendranagar,
on the edge of a desert known as the Little Rann. The
village’s 325 households are a mixture of Bharvads,
Patels, Rajputs, Muslims, Harijans and Prajapatis. The
primary livelihoods are agriculture and salt farming.
Drinking water is provided by two bore wells, although
one is currently broken. |
The
village panchayat maintains the second bore well, but frequent
power outages prevent a constant supply of water. The village
has a post office, a primary and secondary school, and a childcare
centre, but no primary health centre or state bus service.
In
1993, SEWA started work in Degam by organizing childcare in
cooperation with the Government of Gujarat. Initial membership
was 20-25 women, but it was difficult to expand the membership
beyond that. The women of the village could not understand
what SEWA was and what it was trying to achieve. They were
suspicious. SEWA had a hard time convincing the women to contribute
the Rs. 5 membership fee. These challenges were overcome by
patiently moving from house to house, explaining the organization,
its philosophy and its objectives on an one-to-one basis.
Membership numbers began to grow as a relationship was built
between the women of Degam and SEWA fieldworkers, and soon
thereafter SEWA was ready to introduce a savings group into
the village.
The
savings group established in Degam soon ran into trouble.
Membership in the group had grown too large too fast, and
the group was becoming difficult to manage. To ease the task
of management and record keeping, as well as increase accountability,
SEWA proposed to split the group in half. But this proposal
was resisted by the members. Nobody wanted to take the responsibility
of leading the new group. Two women eventually stepped forward
to take symbolic leadership of the group, under the condition
that SEWA fieldworkers would handle the day-to-day coordination
and management of the group. SEWA agreed, realizing that it
takes time to build the capacity and confidence of women to
assume positions of leadership.
Ensuring
that women contributed regularly to their savings group was
the next obstacle SEWA encountered in Degam. Despite the progress
made by the savings groups thus far, the women still remained
suspicious and mistrustful of depositing their hard earned
money in a bank. Many were apathetic, believing that nothing
fruitful would come from saving. To build confidence in saving,
SEWA began providing the women with individual passbooks.
These passbooks were updated on a monthly basis, showing the
amount saved and interest accrued. The women of the savings
group now had visual proof of the benefits saving brought,
as well as assurance that their money was deposited in their
name, and they started contributing on a regular basis. The
minimum deposit amount was set at Rs. 12 per month, Rs. 10
for her personal use and Rs. 2 for the development of her
children.
The
next activity that SEWA undertook in Degam was a health awareness
campaign. There had been a primary healthcare centre in the
village, but it closed down for want of a doctor, and the
village had been without any healthcare provider for some
time. The health awareness campaign, which was spread out
over a six month period, consisted of general health and hygiene
education and first aid training. At the conclusion of the
campaign, one woman, Chandubuaben, came forward and offered
her services as a village health worker. SEWA provided her
with further training on medicines and basic diagnosis of
illnesses.
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