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Mission
To build and enhance core social, economic and political competencies
of grassroots women's collectives and communities with the aim of
bringing the rural poor, women and communities from the margins
to the mainstream of development.
Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) seeks to build and enhance the core
social, economic and political competencies of grassroots women’s
collectives and communities and drive them from the margin to the
centre of development processes. SSP was established in 1989 as
a self-education network and registered as a society in 1998. As
a result of its innovative approach, working after three major disasters
advancing to local developmnet, since 1993, SSP has experienced
a continuous expansion to extend its potential outreach to over
250,000 households.
SSP's portfolio of programs and services are organized along the
following sectors:
• Savings and Credit groups and federation
• Promotion of Sustainable livelihoods
• Community led water and environmental sanitation
• Access to community health services
SSP provides technical support for social mobilisation and capacity
building for local governance and MIS microplanning pilots, advocacy
and knowledge networks.
STRENGTHS
Practices that promote income generation and self-sufficiency
• Microfinance enables the rural women poor to access
capital and build credit. SSP operates two microfinance programmes.
Since 1998, SSP has mobilised grassroots women's network to form
savings and credit groups (15-20 women mobilise savings, lend for
household needs and access microfinance) and member-owned federations
at the local level. With growing demand, SSP established a community
driven (MFI) that has disbursed over Rs. 69.84 million to over 6,805
women Self help groups for productive activities agriculture, small
businesses etc. Future loan products include education, housing,
consumer finance, etc.
• SSP's Business Development Support Services scopes new opportunities,
provides address constraints faced by rural businesses by evaluating
viable enterprise opportunities and promoting business-to-business
linkages. BDSS has trained over 4,500 women self help groups members
on social entrepreneurship.
• Taking advantage of new business opportunities in rural
markets, SSP has partnered with commercial entities to create distribution
chains that build on the strengths of the grassroots women network.
From January 2006 to December 2007, the combined entities outreach
to 50,000 consumers/households directly through microfinance and
village level entrepreneurs to provide socially relevant products
and services. Groups nominate and lend peer support to women village
level entrepreneurs. Today, the network endorses relevant products/services
- biomass stoves and fuel, essential food and groceries, health
insurance. Vision is to build a community ecosystem of non profit
and for profit entities that bring together rural producers, entrepreneurs,
investors, consumers and stakeholders to create and reach out to
rural-urban low income markets.
• Food processing and nutrition initiative in partnership
with Access Pvt Ltd, provides essential, high quality commodities
at affordable prices to members in the network. Linked to this project
the benefits are twofold: SHG networks can turn into producer groups
that procure local produce. Local farmers organised into groups
have a "ready market" and can turn into suppliers to supply local
agricultural produce.
• Micro insurance: Health and life insurance based on a network
solidarity model provides health security to women members and their
families by building linkages with service providers and educators
and promoting a concept of solidarity that pools risk in the case
of personal health emergencies. This could be extended to farmer
groups and the village households in the operational project areas
to protect against crop, climatic stress and growing risks.
Distribution channel in partnership with a multinational company
Extensive use of wood fuel harms women and households and adds to
depletion of precious natural resources. To address lack of affordable
energy sources, SSP promoted Adharam Energy Pvt Ltd by appointing
Jyotis or village level entrepreneurs to deliver consumer education,
biomass appliances and clean fuel producing an expansive social
impact in daily lives of low-income women and households.
Water quality monitoring, management, and conservation - In the
context of water sector reforms, SSP supports local panchayats to
partner with women's groups and plan and manage sustainable water
initiatives in Maharashtra. These projects identify and forge links
between clean water availability, sanitary living conditions and
general cleanliness and hygiene. This programme can be extended
to creating a demand for water conservation and saving practices
in relation to agriculture and ground water sources including recharging.
Problems inherent in the work of this sector are broad and systematic,
and often rooted in an absence of waste disposal systems, transport
and delivery infrastructure and basic water.
Building Community Resilience for disaster risk reduction and climate
change- SSP has intervened in three regions that were devastated
by natural disasters and is seeking to work with women and farmers
groups starting with Maharashtra as a start to addressing social
dimensions of drought, water scarcity and climatic stress faced
by farmers. SSP views disasters as the problem and thus the impetus
for development efforts, requiring a long-term approach that combines
natural resource management, climate change and disaster risk reduction
and governance.
Strong
institutional capacity and a growing infrastructure
SSP believes strongly in the importance of building and
strengthening strong community institutions such as SHGs and federations.
Over the years the service delivery infrastructure of SSP has expanded
and built significant capacity for poor women and their families.
As a result, women are empowered beyond microfinance to participate
in initiatives that support entrepreneurship and allow womens groups
to play key role in planning and designing of primary health care
services, education for children and adolescent girls, water and
sanitation facilities in the context of local governance.
Technical and programmatic expertise
Like development, building human and technical expertise is a dynamic
process. SSP has consistently focused effort on refining the knowledge
and tools available to people at all levels of its network. The
following help enhance SSP competencies and functionality.
Breadth of Board member expertise - Board members and advisory
clusters represent rich experience in matters of financial management
and development, governance, health, water, energy, policy advocacy
and public administration.
Executive leadership - Prema Gopalan, founder and executive
director of SSP, and senior coordinators have over a decade of managerial
and field level development expertise.
Multifaceted management team - SSP's management team includes
select advisors, an administrator and an experienced project team
leader who are responsible for designing and monitoring programmes.
Strong program support - All senior team leaders have over
five years of expertise in social mobilisation, institution-building,
sector development and business development services.
Qualified local teams - District-level resource teams are
organized to provide technical and administrative expertise, database
management, sector facilitation, field surveys and research
Community Resource Teams - Federations, local associations
of SHG networks, community trainers/leaders, farmer-experts and
entrepreneurs are trained to transfer expertise across geographies.
SKILLS
BASE
Developing organizational capacity for social entreprenuership
Investing in new/innovative business models with the potential for
producing social change, economic benefits and determining prospects
for sustainability/
Instituting necessary structures and traning relevant participants
for key roles
Maintaining MIS, a technical database
Conducting surveys to determine need, demand and geographic disbursemnt
of supply
Implementing mechanisms for business processes and streamlined product
distribution
Convening expert working groups of sector specialists to participate
in planning
FUNDING SUPPORT
American Jewish World Service, USA
Allianz Direct Help, Germany
Citigroup/UWI, USA
Ford Foundation, USA
Government of Gujarat and Maharashtra
HIVOS, Netherlands
Misereor, Germany
NETWORKS
AND PARTNERSHIPS
National NGO Networks: CARE India, Peoples Science
Institute, IDPMS, NIMHANS, UPLIFT India, CCD, GMCL, IDPMS, Intellecap,
Pragmatix, SPARC, Tide Technocrats.
Global Networks: ASHOKA, Global Legacy, GROOTS
International, Huairou Commission, New School University.
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