Kudumbasree Exposure Visit: A Report

Aiming for the prosperity of the family, the Kudumbasree project, led by women, seeks to address the basic needs of less privileged women, thereby providing them a dignified life and a better future.

P RADAN professionals visited Kerala in August 2010 to see how the Kudumbasree programme, a poverty alleviation intervention by the state government, is run. The purpose of the visit was to understand another social mobilization approach led by women for poverty alleviation. The visit was motivated by (a) a need to develop programme strategies in PRADAN-operated states, especially in view of the upcoming rural development scheme—the The National Rural Livelihood Mission, NRLM—of the Government of India and (b) to look internally at how PRADAN’s SHG-led poverty alleviation model can be improved in the light of the Kudumbasree experience.

Background

In 1991, the Government of Kerala and UNICEF initiated the Community-based Nutrition Programme (CBNP) in Alleppey town, to improve the health and the nutritional status of children and women. CBNP facilitated the collective action by forming and developing the capacity of three-tiered Community Development Societies (CDSs), the members of which are exclusively women. Women, from families identified as poor, using a 9-point non-income-based index, were organized into Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs) comprising 15–40 families. Each NHG elected a five-member committee called the Neighbourhood Group Committee (NHGC), to co-ordinate and facilitate action at the NHG level. The NHGs were federated at the ward level of village panchayat (which typically has a population of around 1,500–2,000) into Area Development Societies (ADSs). The ADSs in the village panchayats were then federated at the municipal level into a registered body called the CDS. Each NHG, ADS and CDS has five volunteers carrying out different functional roles.