Self Help Groups as an Empowerment Model: Perceptions of Direct Stakeholders

Abstract

Self Help Groups (SHGs) emerge as an important strategy for empowering women and to alleviate poverty. India’s SHG movement has emerged as the world’s largest and most successful network of Community Based Organisations (CBOs). However, quality is the major challenge that the SHG movement is confronted with at this point of time in the country. The main objective of this paper is to assess the opinion of the direct stakeholders of SHGs regarding the issue whether SHG is an empowerment model. The study is conducted by using multi-stage random sampling method to collect primary data from the selected Development Blocks of Nagaon districts of Assam comprising promoter, donor, financial institutions and group members. From the ANOVA on overall score of variables on empowerment model, we conclude that at least one of the groups is not significantly different from the others. It is further observed from the descriptive statistics on item wise perception of stakeholders about SHG as empowerment model, out of forty (40) elements of empowerment, in thirty four (34) elements relating to Empowerment construct relating to SHGs whose mean value is positive are considered as the main elements of the respective construct.