…moving together, making together a better tomorrow…

Vishwakarma Self Help Group (SHG), at Kesarpura village (Mavashiya Panchayat, Shrinagar block, Ajmer, Rajasthan) has started one year back with the support from LIFE project. Group has started with the initial membership of 15 women of the Kesharpura village with the monthly saving of Rs. 100 and still after one year they have 15 memberships and saving of Rs. 100. at present they have the saving of Rs. 20000 with a bank account in Cooperative bank at Mavashiya Panchayat. Although till now they have not received any bank, but they have applied for it.  At present they conduct their meeting once in a month on every 25^th at 7.00 pm and during the meeting they discuss about the different development issues like agriculture, education and health and do the collection of saving amount and inter loaning among themselves. For inter-loaning they charge 2% interest rate per month.

Within the year all the members have taken loan once and also repaid it, they have taken loan basically for the purpose of agriculture and livestock…..when we have asked them about the leadership of the group, they have selected Ms. Kamladevi (45 years) as the president who is illiterate, they said she is able to manage the team of we all members and is enough bold to represent the group, to do the documentation of the group there is a qualified (9^th pass) secretary in the group and she do the all documentation part…..also they have the concept of rotational leadership, but it is on need and demand of group members. This group has its own bye laws regarding saving, loaning, attending meetings and point of discussion during the meeting, if some one is absent in the meeting , she has to take permission from the president and in next meeting she has to pay Rs. 10 as fine for the absenteeism!

When we have asked them that why they came together to form the group, they said we all work in NREGA , and are able to do some saving, so we thought its better if we would be in a systematic structure of group formation, but all this has been seeded by the LIFE project staff during frequent visits to the village and interaction with the village target families women….now apart from these 15 members other women also wants to join their group by seeing the progress of the Vishwakarma group…..they have given the name Vishwakarma, because the name represents the meaning of …working hard!...now these women are happy and their family members are also happy to see their progress…now they are able to spent some good amount on themselves and on their children education….now they wear neat and clean sarees, go for health check-ups and send their children to schools…in words of Kamladevi…project has changed their life!