Wardhinis of MSRLM....ever growing, thriving to increase prosperity....

Wardhinis of MSRLM....ever growing, thriving to increase prosperity....

Maharashtra State Rural Livelihoods Mission (MSRLM) - UMED, is working for the empowerment of women through self help groups (SHGs). Social and financial inclusion and sustainable livelihoods are the ultimate goals to be achieved by creating community institutions. There has been a phenomenal growth in the number of SHGs in Maharashtra during the last two years with their numbers increasing from about 80,000 to over 3 lakhs. The number of families benefitting due to this social inclusion has also increased from about 8 lakhs to over 30 lakhs. This has been possible due to the dedicated services of the Wardhinis.
Bringing people together, making them understand the importance of community institutions and forming self-help groups is the first step towards social inclusion and is perhaps the most daunting task. It requires immense skill, dedication, will-power , grit and determination.
The support of Community Resource Persons from Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) - Andhra Pradesh was initially taken for mobilisation and Institutional building in the new villages. Though SERP is a specialised agency there were some constraints which included the language barrier, limited number of trainers and time lag. Consequently the need of creation of a cadre of CRPs within the state was felt.
Maharashtra had a pool of bare foot animators –called Sanghatika which existed since 2008 in the SGSY programme in Wardha district. Learnings from the NRO & SGSY created cadre gave insight to MSRLM to create Wardhini, a cadre of their own to facilitate social inclusion. The services of these fiesty women from this cadre were used to facilitate formation of SHGs under MSRLM.
‘Wardhini’ means “evergrowing” ,"increasing", "thriving", "bestowing prosperity" . True to their description Wardhinis have been transforming lives and creating an atmosphere congenial to overall growth in rural areas. Today the state has about 5000 Wardhinis dedicated for social inclusion.
Wardhinis are given the task of training SHG members, newly identified community resource persons and book-keepers along with formation of SHGs. Selecting a right candidate as Wardhini is therefore very important. Rural women who are educated with basic skills of reading and writing and have had school education appear for the written test, group discussion and personal interview and are selected on the basis of the results.
They then undergo a thorough training of 5 months in the methodology for inclusion of village into the NRLM fold, assessment of poverty with PRA tools & household survey , master training of SHGs in the module for social mobilisation, SM-1 Module & Book-keeper’s module, SBK-1 Module and of course the Dashsutri.
Wardhinis are external Community Resource Persons who facilitate mobilisation in the villages of different blocks of the districts to which they do not belong.
The pattern of working of Wardhinis is known as “rounds” which is of 15 days. In each 15 day round for each village the five member team of Wardhini stays in the host village to understand the issues related to poverty, identification of the poor and for mobilization of the poor households into the SHG fold. The woman members of the households are motivated to become member of the SHG. They are then capacitated with trainings of SHGs, bookkeeping etc.
The SHG formation and related activities accomplished by Wardhinis have been cost effective compared to the CRPs from SERP. The cost is almost halved in Wardhini Rounds. The Coverage of block has also speeded up as targeted. Wardhinis thus contribute for creation of social capital for rapid mobilisation and expansion of mission in other districts and for further empowerment of the villages
Wardhinis hail from economically weaker/Below Poverty Line households. Most of them have overcome their economic problems and in some cases social issues with the support of SHGs and surfaced as a role model for others.
The Wardhinis not only bring together the rural women for inter loaning but they also encourage and facilitate them for linkage with the Institutional Financial Systems. The bank linkage enhances the financial literacy and inclusion of the otherwise deprived women.
A woman hailing from the weakest section of the rural society leaving her home and household responsibilities for 45 days at a stretch for the economic and social empowerment of other women brings out the uniqueness of the Model.
Thus, Wardhinis reflect the emancipation of the rural society from the patriarchal mentality to a large extent. Their contribution to the empowerment of rural women has given a lot of strength to the community.
In my recent interaction with the Wardhinis at Wardha last week where they had assembled for assesment of their work in the present financial year and planning for the next 6 months I was able to interact with over 250 Wardhinis. Their enthusiasm was palpable as they shared their experience of staying 45 days in 3 villages allocated to them
Sangeeta Hise, of the Aanapoorna SHG , is a farmer's daughter. She is 12th pass and was married at 18. She has two sons. Her husband works in a private company and earned barely Rs.800/- and their living was hand-to-mouth. She supported him financially by doing odd selling jobs. She also had to bear the troubles of having a drunkard husband.
Her life changed after she joined the SHG and the VO. She started doing small business and earning money. She soon applied to become a wardhini and got selected.
When asked how has the experience has been at Solapur in the Akkalkot block where she went, she said that initially getting a response was difficult. During their visi, they had reached the village in the morning and not having cut ice with the people had no place to stay even for the night. It became dark and they had no place to stay. They managed to get permission to stay in a temple at 9.30 PM thanks to one local boy. With no food to eat all day, they shared the tiffin they had brought. They received no support from the local.people. In fact a press reporter scornfully said even if the Wardhinis stayed in their village for 15 days in the village, nobody would come. Women also did not show any interest nor did anyone attend the mahila sabha. Finally the wardhinis felt they should approach the husbands of the women. So they organised a kopra baithak ( corner meeting) and asked the husbands to join. That was the first breakthrough and they were finally able to form eight SHGs.
She sincerely felt that ," Adchani aahe mhanoon wardhini aahe" , that is Wardhinis were there because difficulties were there and they had to be overcome. Ultimately Wardhinis held a sabha attended by 160 persons. They even held sabhas for youth girls.
It was their determination which led them to success.
This story is one among the hundreds of stories of empowerment through enterprises. . Wardhinis true to their word are the leading force and their positive attitude will surely strengthen the mission and lead to overall development of the women.