Gender equity and empowerment

Having the major thrust area of women empowerment, CCD is capacitating the women community providing socio-economic opportunities binding them in a common platform promoting Self Help Groups and Cooperatives ensuring their participation in all developmental sectors like Palli Sabha/Gram Sabhas in decision making process, ensuring Equal Wages, taking up micro entrepreneurship, value addition initiatives and other seasonal business providing financial support through bank linkages exposing their personality for leadership development with rightful share and concern validating the gender equity

Sucess Stories on Women Empowerment

See how the tribal women came to the forefront of development out of the kitchen room.

The story reveals the gradual development of a tribal women named Srimati Savitri Soboro of village Pekoto of Rayagada Block.

The women came to realize the importance of having adequate information's through the proper initiation and prolonged interaction with the representatives of CCD for the developmental perspectives and tried her best to follow the advice and take steps in connection with the all round development of the women folk inhabited in the tribal villages. She took better initiatives to motivate the tribal women making them aware of the developmental initiatives taken by CCD persuading them to attend the village SHG meetings for proper awareness on the development. By attending regularly at the said meetings they have been capacitated to raise their voice for village development getting acquainted with the information related to various developmental packages provided through various schemes launched by the Government.

It had a great impact on the individual life of the Savitri Soboro, who has gone a long way in the upliftment of the women folks. Through the spirit of better coordination and enthusiasm she could bring all the women folks into a web of intimacy thus promoting integrity to maintain the group solidarity. She developed her leadership skills through attending the SHG meetings regularly out of her genuine interest. She also took the initiation of leading the group gradually day by day. Thus doing so won the confidence of other members which ultimately helped her to come to the state of taking part in the self governance process of the grass root level democracy. Now the proposal from every corner of the village is coming to nominate the candidature of the said women to take part in the elections conducted for the Sarpanch, Naib Sarpanch etc. This shows that how an effective motivation coupled with self realization and genuine interest worked as the powerful instruments to stimulate the progressive mentality of the tribal women who were confined within the areas of kitchen room and bogodo came forward to take active part in the process of self governing.

Progression of SHGs in a new dimension

After the formation of the groups with the initiation of CCD the tribal women could realize the importance of group effort in further development of their growth equipping themselves how to grapple with the problems in order to be self reliant initiating the income generation activities to supplement their income and to stand on their own feet.

By this way they came to form a federation in order to strengthen the group solidarity and economic base. Simultaneously, they have also tried much to solve the intra group problems, village related problems etc. They have been struggling more in order to survive for a longer period of time to take some new initiatives in tackling the problems intervening in the path of their progress. However, the group spirit, continuous effort, unabated enthusiasm, better initiation, growing thrift attitude enabled the women to stand on their own feet fostering the developmental attitude and spirit of volunteerism in them. The members of the group have been supported by MCA grant by UNDP and utilized the given micro capital assistance with a proper revolving of the funds sanctioned to them. The bankers have also come forward to extend their cooperation in their developmental process establishing the linkages with them. The district officials like BDOs, have also extended their unstinting cooperation in taking the initiations to maintain the tempo of the development of the group concerned. It is only by dint of group effort and their continuous follow up with the field staff of CCD and district officials concerned. They became able to develop their rapport with the various Govt. Officials to mobilize the Govt. funds also. How ever, they are making all possible efforts to achieve their objectives. They had a long cherished desire of forming the bank of their own. They thought of forming this because of the numerous problems faced by them in depositing the money and its withdrawal bearing more expenditure and very low rate of interest fixed by the bank which prompted them to form the Mahila Bank. Now they are in the process of forming the bank of their own through the help of federation. They decided it through the federation and tried to materialize it. This shows how the better initiative drove the group working in new dimension.

See how collective effort leads . . .

The women group of village Sanno Jollango have initiated the group work to strengthen their economic base and go ahead with great enthusiasm to maintain their tempo of development. After a careful thinking with a determent effort and meticulous planning they decided to take a land of half acre on lease basis by paying an amount of Rs. 10000/- to the land holder towards obtaining the land to under take the cultivation in a group collectively. They brought the piece of land under cultivation for raising paddy. They did it through their group effort with homogenous temperament and better working spirit. They initiated the process of cultivation by sowing 30 Kgs of paddy seeds and became able to get an amount of 900 Kgs of paddy during the period of harvesting. The price of such paddy amounts to Rs. 4500/- at a current price. But, now the group is not in a position of selling the paddy at the said price. They have decided to sell it at Rs.10/- per Kg., so that it will amount to Rs.10000/- which is the fair price at which they want to sell it in future. They raised the paddy by using the natural fertilizers like cow dung, compost pits etc. They cultivated the land properly and used the manures timely. Hence, could get the desired amount of paddy from the particular piece of land.

This became possible by dint of their collective effort in the process of cultivation.

Change in attitude changes the way of life.

Savitri Kingal, a tribal women living in the village Bodo Pottaro situated in the hilly region of Rayagada Block is now reaching the threshold of success remaining in a group. The members of her entire family were depending upon the Bogodo cultivation. They were struggling hard to have a morsel of food without being able to save any thing for future. Not only she but also the entire villagers as a whole were facing the similar problem which ultimately led them to find out a solution through the group. With the intervention of CCD they came to know the way of savings and its importance in day - to - day life of every individual. They tried their best to develop the attitude of thrift thus saving a part of their earning in order to meet the future needs after forming the group. The group came into being consisting of 20 members with a monthly contribution of Rs. 20/- per member. Firstly, they started their activities with their own contribution, but suffered a lot while continuing their activities facing the problem of paucity of funds. With the passage of time they got the support of UNDP for initiating the income generating activities with an assistance of the total amount of Rs. 60000/-. Now the group is improving gradually due to the non interruption of the income generation activities. They are also revolving their funds properly. As there exists the internal loaning facilities Savitri took an amount of Rs. 1200/- as a loan from the group account to start a small scale business. She utilized it properly by starting a fruit business. Now she expresses with a great confidence that she would definitely get an amount of Rs. 1000/- as a profit from her investment in business. Such type of confidence she has developed in her mind remaining in a group learning the group spirit, group effort, gaining and sharing of knowledge and experience on a common plat-form among the group members to maintain the solidarity of the group.