Building Women-Owned Institutions

Ensuring Access to Finance for Women Entrepreneurs - May 2023

WHY WOMEN EMPOWERMENT?

Gender-discrimination curbs women from achieving their best and stands in the way of living a life free of domination and fear.

Stimulate the confidence in women by providing them opportunities to see the skills that they contain and are dormant within them. Better education and awareness enables them to take advantage of income-earning opportunities and support their families.

Sampark believes that women who are underprivileged can improve their living conditions only when they realise their potential and become self-reliant.

WHAT SAMPARK DOES TO EMPOWER WOMEN

Sampark works towards enhancing the voice of women, with the philosophy that all women, men and children have the basic human rights to dignity and self-determination, and that all people should have the opportunity and choice to enhance their own potential and well-being.

Work with 7,000 low-income women, devadasis (deprived of human rights) in Koppal, Karnataka through the Self-Help Group (SHG) model. The SHGs are federated into 3 Self Reliant Cooperatives, registered with the government of Karnataka
Work with 900 low incomes, scheduled caste rural women (socio-economically disadvantaged) in Chiraigaon Block, near Varanasi, UP in creating sustainable livelihoods.

Interventions

Training & Capacity-Building

Koppal

Self reliant credit cooperatives of rural women manage the day to day functioning as well as governance activities on their own, with capacity building support from Sampark. They have nearly 7,000 members across 60 villages who deposit savings and avail credit for income generating activities. The cooperatives have the capacity to liaise with local governance structures to avail support. The other women are in completely independent SHGs that are able to link to government programmes and avail credit and other forms of support.

Varanasi
The women are trained to run their own Self Help groups, and manage their accounts. They are encouraged to be more confident, mobile , and attend training on a variety of topics such as health and hygiene, leadership and gender.

Skill & Enterprise Training

Varanasi Skill training is organised for interested women. The areas of skills training include, tailoring, digital literacy, handcrafted cosmetics and food sector, etc. Leverage the existing skills of the women and upskill them to enable them to produce market-relevant and/or value-added products. Kashika is the range of masalas made by the SHG women. To taste the traditional, native and pure masalas, click the link to order www.kashikafoods.com.

Nepal Sampark builds the capacities of a union and a cooperative of entertainment workers of 4,000 members, in the area of enterprise training and financial inclusion. It works through a training of Trainers model and builds local capacities. This strengthens the union to offer valuable services to its members and therefore increases its own membership and sustainability.

Bring about Policy changes and Norms

Sampark’s SHGs and cooperatives are strengthened to liaise with local government structures and access entitlements. The women develop confidence and greater mobility. This increases their stature, thereby changing norms.

Research and knowledge activities

The knowledge and research activities are undertaken by the Sampark Livelihoods Promotion Trust (SLPT) which is a separate organization with research in development goals.

A Rapid Assessment of the Devadasi Practice in India

Study on SHGs, Federations and Livelihood Collectives

SOIL Report: Unequal Access: Women and their livelihoods in 2020