Basic Facts

• Except in certain tribal societies, women in most parts of rural India are economically dependent on their male counterparts
  
  
• Low literacy rates and lack of employment opportunities in rural areas contribute to economic deprivation and overall underdeveloped status of women
  
  
• Child marriage practices, lack of the woman's control over the number of children she has, and an overall dependence on male members in a generally patriarchal society contributes immensely towards the low social status of women - especially in rural India
  
  
• Education system in India does little to impart life skills and prepare adolescent girls to face the challenges of womanhood and motherhood
  

Beliefs and Principles

• Women in rural India are generally hugely dependent on their male counterparts and ensuring their economic upliftment would contribute to the overall development process
  
  
• Collective action by women through thrift and credit activities would empower them to deal with the larger environment, both individually and collectively
  
  
• An empowered woman is the pivot around which family and society develops and therefore their participation in development interventions must be ensured
  
  
• All women living in a village of intervention must be mobilised around thrift and credit activities regardless of caste, creed or religion
  
  
• Family health condition in general and children's health in particular are dependent upon the level of health awareness and health seeking behaviour of the mother and thus educating women on health issues is an important development intervention

Experience

• Aide et Action has been supporting NGO partners in implementing projects the focus of which has been elementary education. In most of the projects being supported, there are certain planned interventions for women's empowerment. NGO partners have been working for women's empowerment mainly by mobilising women to form Self Help Groups and carry out thrift and credit activities. However, AeA's experience has been rather limited to providing financial resources for initial investments such as matching grants, revolving funds, etc

Scope

• To provide a perspective of broader social and financial agenda of Self Help Groups in addressing household economic vulnerability, which will have negative impact on the education of children, especially that of girl children
  
  
• To build solidarity groups based on financial literacy of the members as well as social and financial intermediation so that women's empowerment can be realised
  

Strategy

The following major strategies are adopted for the Women’s Education and empowerment component in AeA programs:

• Build the capacity of AeA to be the driving force promoting women's education and empowerment
  
  
• Building capacities of NGO partners on Women's Education (WE) issues ensuring that all women are covered under Self Help Groups and linked to government facilities and benefits
  
  
• Support NGO partners and Directly Implemented Projects (DIPs) to evolve strategies and mainstream women's education in their respective projects
  
  
• Support NGO partners and DIPs to build capacities of Self Help Groups to run Early Childcare Centers and be actively involved in all village development initiatives
  
  
• Support NGO partners and DIPs to plan and implement pilot projects for economic development of women in Self Help Groups
  
  
• Support NGO partners to identify and establish linkages with technical and resources organisations to promote women's education initiatives at grassroots level
  
  
• Building capacities of AeA staff in women's education
  
  
• Evolve strategies for Advocacy of women's education at appropriate forums
  
  
• Support NGO partners and DIPs to develop strategies and plans to leverage Government and other resources for programs on adolescent girls
  
  
• Documentation and publications
  
  
• WE would develop innovative curriculum to facilitate women to acquire financial literacy so that they would be able to address issues of self-management and their dependence on external facilitation in due course. Approaches of REFLECT would be practised in the field
  
  
• WE would also develop innovative sensitisation programs at field level that enables women to appreciate the need for wider social and political action, especially participation in Panchayat Raj Institutions, village education committees, school committees etc