'Umeed' gives hope to sangrur women

Sangrur, November 14 Jaspal Kaur has overridden almost everything in her will to survive. With little to eat nearly a decade ago, she found dignity in small savings through a self-help group (SHG). Devastated by the sudden death of her college-going son, she found solace in the collective grief displayed by her ‘group’. Anchored by the support of her SHG, she has a reason to take on life once again - her group has just brought her a tempo traveller, which has overnight changed her as well as her husband’s social status in the village. Other women in Jaspal’s village - Lakhowal, including the poorest of the poor Scheduled Castes and backward caste women, also have a reason to smile. All of them, who started off by collecting Rs 20 per month, have graduated to saving Rs 200 per month and now want to collect Rs 500 per month after they pay back their current loans.

The success of Lakhowal’s first SHG pioneered by the Umeed Foundation, which is run by former Sangrur legislator Arvind Khanna, has spawned the formation of two more SHGs with village women now dreaming big. “What looks easy now has taken nearly a decade to achieve”, says Col RPS Brar, Arjuna awardee and CEO of Umeed, which has created a network of supervisors and social organisers to help groups of 10 women each in establishing as many as 300 SHGs in the district. Explaining the work behind the establishment of the SHGs, Colonel Brar says Umeed first encourages village women to collect and pass a resolution to form a group. He said the NGO’s social organisers then contact the women and help in opening an account register besides coordinating election of the president and secretary of the group. The group decides how much its members want to save every month and after six months of regular saving they are facilitated to open an account in a bank.

Geeta Rawat, a gutsy social organiser, says most women go in for purchasing buffaloes by either borrowing from the group or against a limit fixed for the group by the bank. She says as many as 800 women have purchased buffaloes in this manner. A few have even gone on to open their own dairy business with Jagroop Kaur of Lakhowal even establishing a dairy, which buys and sells milk besides starting a small cattle feed business. “We had nothing”, says Jagroop, adding that she had come up the hard way. Jagroop’s group now collects Rs 200 per month and has Rs 52,000 in circulation among its members. Women have found their own pursuits under the SHGs and are even becoming bold to dream big. Shaminder Kaur of Bharo village took a loan of Rs 50,000 six months ago. Now she has taken a loan of Rs 1 lakh and opened a shop in the village. Both she and her husband sew clothes besides leasing out CDs on rent. Still others have started involving their entire families in their ventures. Sulochana has brought a photocopier and a computer that her son uses to load songs in CDs. The success achieved by these gutsy women is percolating to their men folk also. In a fitting tribute to the experiment, an all-male SHG has started making monthly collections at Bharo, which could well start another revolution in this district.