Group Dynamics Effectiveness of Women's Groups in Raipur District of Chhattisgarh

Women in formal groups showed certain characteristics such as fellow feeling, co-operation, cordiality, sympathy, understanding, leadership, etc. among themselves. To utilize these potential quality attempts have been made for facilitating women's overall status by organizing them into a formal group. Women's groups (WGs) are playing a major role in rural areas. The groups function to provide a platform for each member of the group to identify and use opportunities for their growth and empower WGs/SHGs to collaborate with other institutions. Group dynamics is a phenomenon in which we examine the group functions, its need, and the interaction among the members of the group. “When a group matures, several forces-physical, social, moral, and economic, operate within it and influence the behaviour of its members, ultimately affecting the group productivity. The total of these forces that contribute to the performance of a group is termed as "Group Dynamics". The research was in Raipur district of Chhattisgarh. Three villages were selected from 2 selected blocks viz. Arang and Dharsiwa, and five women groups were selected from each village. Ahundred and twenty respondents from thirty women groups were interviewed. Majority of respondents were found in medium category of group dynamics effectiveness dimensions such as participation, membership, influence, and style of influence, decision making procedure, task functions, maintenance functions, group atmosphere, interpersonal trust, norms, feelings and achievements in women's group and most of them had empathy at lower category. 65 per cent of the women's group had medium overall Group Dynamics Effectiveness (GDE) category.