An exploratory analysis on the empowerment and social impact of women self help group members in Kanchipuram district

Empowerment is an active multidimensional process to enable women to realise their identity and power in all spheres of life. Though number of programmes has been launched in India to fulfill the vision of expanding women's horizons of autonomous decision-making and control over resources, they could not achieve the ultimate goal of complete and all-round development of women folk. Several programmes and schemes have, no doubt, brought economic and social reforms, but not in a significant manner. The current SHG mechanism brings together the members who have a common perception of need and an impulse towards collective action. At present Tamil Nadu Government has been effectively implementing Mahilar Thittam through SHG. The present study assesses the empowerment gained by the self help group members after joining the SHG in Kanchipuram District. The study was conducted with a sample of 350 members from three NGOs affiliated to Mahalir Thittam scheme. The statistical tools like simple percentage, mean score, Chi-square Analysis and Correlation co-efficient have been used. The result of study reveals that SHG has triggered a pronouncing impact on all the dimensions of empowerment front in the Kanchipuram District.