More and more women in the northeastern state of Mizoram are climbing the economic ladder, with little help from the government.
These women, mostly belonging to the poorest of poor households, are taking up alternative livelihood activities like opening petty shops and small businesses or expanding the existing ones like farming, poultry, piggery and goatery.
Women Self-Help Groups, formed under the North East Rural Livelihood Project (NERLP), run by the Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Ministry, are working as force multiplier for economic empowerment of individual members.
Members of an SHG formed under NERLP take up economic activities either jointly or individually, unlike in an earlier scheme where members of an SGH could work on only one activity.
"We allow members of an SHG to work either jointly or separately unlike an earlier government scheme. This has fetched good results," said Reuben Ranglong, Aizawl District Project Manager of NERLP.
Observing that group activities and individual efforts have both shown successes, he gave an example of a women tailoring SHG in Sihphir village in Tlangnuam block.
Ten members of the group, aged between 25 and 45, started the tailoring unit with a little financial assistance from NERLP. Every member of the group now earns about Rs 8,000-Rs 10,000 a month, besides giving employment to five other women.
"Similarly, an individual member of another SHG in the village expanded her poultry business after taking loan from the group. 54-year-old Lalchhuanthangi earned about Rs 3,45,000 last year. Her husband who earlier used to do odd jobs now works full-time in the poultry," he said, adding that there are many such success stories.
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