Women Development Trust

Women

While women form 50 percent of India’s population, they are disproportionately poor and are at a disadvantage when compared to men. Discrimination against them results in lack of control over their own lives in general, their health and their income-generating resources. WDT has been working to empower women belonging to poor, marginalized rural communities since 1982-83.

• A total of 3991 self-help groups (SHGs) with a membership of 50,558 women are functioning in 767 villages by the end of 2011. Of them 2701 groups are running ‘Mini-Banks’ with the help of their own monthly savings which they rotate as credit among themselves to meet their basic or emergency needs. The cumulative savings in Mini Banks run by SHGs of women by the end of 2011 stands at Rs.6,03,15,920 i.e. an average cumulative saving of Rs.1700 per member approximately.
• Women in the SHGs have an access to Women Development Fund (WDF) which is a revolving fund run by the women with the aim of providing access to capital to start feasible income generating schemes to improve their socio-economic status. During 2011, 983 women from 97 SHGs took a loan of Rs.1,23,77,848 from WDF for various schemes such as rearing of milch cattle, rams, petty business and other enterprises and had already repaid 51% of loan taken by them.
• A total of 1,857 women were trained in various vocational skills till 2011 such as Tailoring, Incense Sticks, and Sanitary Napkins are making use of their skills and are earning a daily income ranging from Rs.75 to Rs.125.
• Asset creation for rural women through the promotion of dairy animals is an important program in the drought affected area of Anantapur District since those families having buffaloes or cows can better survive a drought year than those who don’t. By the end of 2011, women owned 2707 Milch Cattle.
• Important program dealing on the issues of violence against women and girls was initiated in the year 2010 to raise awareness and to support women facing various types of maltreatment and harassment. Upto now in 67 villages the process of constituting Social Action Teams (SAT) composed of 2 to 3 rural women and at least one men have been constituted. These teams are being trained to identify women facing violence and extending necessary support to solve their problems.