Kudumbashree: Promoting the Self-Help Group Model of Empowerment Through Women Entrepreneurship in Kerala - A Study.

Abstract

Women are the basic unit of the society. They become even more critical as a long-term solution to a sustainable livelihood. The women entrepreneurship through empowerment aims to create human resources within the productive sector and to sustain for the further development process. Kerala is only the state in India that attained a remarkable status fulfilling all the criterion of various social well-beings compare with some of the developed countries in the world, which is widely known as ‘Kerala model of development’. This achievement reflects in respect of literacy level of women, salary or wage structure of employment, technical and professional services, women got equality with men. This Political and socio-economic scenario within the state, reinforce to redefine the consciousness about poverty concept. In this sense, poverty is dynamically viewed as freedom of choice from a socio-economic functioning than only the concern of income or money. Again, poverty reduction is not only the matter of an overall economic growth in a society, but also that interconnected with various social aspects like women empowerment and women entrepreneurship. All these multi-dimensional approach lead the government to form a female community intended poverty reduction project in the state and results to the birth of “Kudumbashree”. The mission has set as self-help groups (SHG) model of women empowerment to encouraging the wide range of female entrepreneurial activities. Now Kudumbashree became one of the largest women's movements in Asia. This research study was conducted within the time period of three months from July to September 2015, among the female entrepreneurs those who are actively participating in Kudumbashree mission in Kerala. The aim of this paper was to explore the activities and influence of Kudumbashree and the way it stimulates women empowerment, as well as female entrepreneurship.