Capacity Building through Women Groups

Structured efforts for women empowerment and poverty alleviation should involve capacity building of the targeted group parallel to the provision of economic means to them. The Self-help Groups (SHGs) formed nation-wide for the empowerment of poor women pool small savings of their members to begin with and supplement the financial requirement of the members by associating with banks and other financial institutions. To enable the group members to handle micro-credit with care, manage micro-enterprises, and involve in social and political activities with confidence, capacity building programmes of varied nature are inevitable. The paper examines the capacity building programmes undertaken through women groups in Kerala by Kudumbashree, the State Poverty Eradication Mission (SPEM), launched by the Government of Kerala, India.