Empowering Women in Rural India

The group, who once relied upon money-lenders to make ends meet, now run a successful canteen. They are earning enough money to provide their families with a better quality of life and, for the first time, are taking an active role in their community. SCIAF’s Asia Projects Officer, Percy Patrick tells their inspirational story.

It was the first decision they had ever made without consulting their husbands.

This statement may not mean a lot to us here in Scotland but for thousands of rural Indian women it is a very different matter. In India women, especially those in poor communities, are often marginalised and treated as a liability. Female infanticide is common and young girls are readily given away in marriage with little respect for their wishes.

Although the practice of presenting a dowry - a gift or payment made by the bride’s family to the groom - was outlawed in 1961, it is still at the heart of Indian culture and tradition. Women can be harassed by their husband or in-laws for additional dowry payments long after the nuptial knot has been tied. In some cases, brides have been pushed to suicide or burnt alive.

Alcoholic husbands, domestic abuse and being the sole breadwinner for a large family are all part and parcel of many women’s lives. Decision making is an alien concept to many Indian women, but not in the dusty village of Pattial Pettu, in the Southern state of Tamil Nadu.

In Pattial Pettu, most women worked as casual labourers, earning as little as 400 Rupees (£5.50) a week. They struggled to make ends meet and often had to borrow from money-lenders at exorbitant rates of interest. But with the help of SCIAF and their local partner, the Tamil Nadu Women’s Collective, the village women have come together to fight for a better life.

Their first big decision was to form the Malligai Self Help Group, a savings and credit union scheme, which started in February 2000. Each woman agreed to put aside 50 Rupees (63p) per month. The organisation now boasts savings of 95,800 Rupees (£1,208.69) and has distributed 1,157,000 Rupees (£14,597.67) in loans to its members.

Through the Women’s Collective, SCIAF also provided the women of Pattial Pettu with training in finance and business management, giving them the skills to start up their own business ventures.

In 2004, the Tamil Nadu Government provided them with 25,000 Rupees (£315.42). The women started a variety of small businesses, but by the end of the year the money had run out and they were unable to repay the loan. Things looked gloomy but SCIAF and the Women’s Collective stood by them and encouraged them to believe in themselves. A year later, they had regained their confidence and were ready to try again.

Five of the women decided to pool their resources and work together. As they were all good cooks, they chose to open a canteen. They carefully planned their business venture before applying for a loan of 30,000 Rupees (£378.50) from the Malligai Self Help Group. In January 2006 the canteen opened for business and soon secured a contract with two companies based at the Kakkalur Industrial Estate, supplying 300 employees with cooked food. Within just four months, the women were able to pay off their loan in full. The canteen makes a monthly profit of 4,500 Rupees (£56.78) and the women each take home 1,250 Rupees (£15.77) a month.

The regular income has made a massive difference to their lives. They have been able to repair their houses, enrol their children in better schools, buy new clothes for their families and provide them with better, more nutritious food. The money-lender is no longer a part of their lives.

And it doesn’t stop there. The women motivated other members of their group to speak to the local government about the poor sanitation in their area. The government listened and in 2006 a new drainage system was built. Waste no longer contaminates the water and there are fewer mosquitoes and less cases of malaria.

All this has had a dramatic impact on their status within their own families and the wider community. These women are now treated with greater respect and equality. They are able to provide their daughters with equal access to education, economic freedom, dignity and social equality. In recent Panchayat (local) elections, group member Ms Kanchana was elected as a ward member, representing the village.

The women of Pattial Pettu are no longer confined to the kitchen as passive spectators to household events. They play a proactive role in shaping the destiny of their families and their community. Their success has motivated 120 women in the surrounding area to form a further six self help groups. These women have emerged as a symbol of the change that is blowing across Tamil Nadu. Thanks to SCIAF and the Women’s Collective, their fate is finally in their own hands.