Facilitating Women in Endemic Poverty Regions to Access, Actualize and Sustain Provisions on Empowerment: A Baseline Study
Mapping Women’s current levels of awareness of their rights, their participation in decision-making processes and their attitude to patriarchy, the study provides quantitative and qualitative data of the situation on the ground.
Background
P RADAN, in coalition with Jagori (a national-level NGO working for women’s rights and empowerment), intends to mobilize women from 75,000 families from over 5,000 SHGs with support from the UN Women Fund for Gender Equality. The overall goal of the project is that ‘by 2020, rural women from marginalized communities and their collectives, in nine districts in four States of Central India, will be able to raise their voice against violations and access their political and economic rights as mandated under the Central and State Government policies’. The programme seeks to work with a large number of poor rural women, including over two-thirds belonging to the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Scheduled Castes (SCs), organized into Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and solidarity associations. The programme will focus on four states of India beset with endemic poverty to a) enhance and institutionalize the effective economic and political participation of women and b) impact the status of women in the family and the community, including their engagement in local government bodies. These are also the goals enshrined in the National Policy for the Empowerment of Women (NPEW) 2001, as also in the 11th Five Year Plan of the Government of India.
With ‘empowerment’ as the long-term goal, PRADAN proposes to use several strategies. The key among these are: mobilizing women, forming Self-Help Groups, training and building awareness, and providing technical assistance to support livelihood strategies. In the pilot districts, each woman will be supported to develop livelihood options thus enhancing her control over the economic resources; to participate in local governance systems effectively and build gender-sensitive accountability processes; to negotiate intra-family issues that hinder equal access to rights for women and girls, including addressing domestic violence, access rights and entitlements enshrined in various statutes (such as NPEW) and the Constitution.