Poverty is a disease which makes poor people poorer. It is a barrier to empower poor people from all financial and social aspects. When it is the question of empowering poor women especially from rural areas this barrier becomes more powerful. Many financial and social obligations come to hinder this movement. Traditionally women live their lives within four walls to maintain families and for taking care of children. Men used to ignore the need of empowering the women for their own interest. There is a need for changing this mind-set towards women so as to give equal rights to them to move the nation forward. Today women are breaking free from the traditional gender specific roles and employing themselves into business in desire to get prosperity for their families. The rural women and different Micro Financial Institutions (henceforth MFIs) are joining together for self-help to secure better economic growth. This has resulted in the formation of Women Self Help Groups (henceforth WSHGs) in the country. The formation of WSHGs has a substantial impact on their lives. This paper attempts to find out whether there is any significant improvement in women's’ life especially in rural areas of North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal. To get this answer the author had conducted two surveys once in 2012–13 and again in 2014–15 with the same set of questions with same group members. The 7-Point Grade Scale then used to evaluate the performance of the group members and the outcome of the study revealed that the WSHGs have had greater impact on both economic and social aspects of the beneficiaries
Poverty, women empowerment, micro-finance, Self-Help groups, 7-Points Grade Scale
