Development of Capacity Building through Self Help Groups in Tuticorin District

Women acquire collective bargaining power and at the same time, they get an institution of their own which is managed by them. This study aims at evaluating the empowerment and poverty alleviation of rural women through SHGs and development of capacity building in Tuticorin district of Tamilnadu. Totally 185 respondents were selected from 54 SHGs (923 total members) of four blocks by using simple random sampling method. The sample size was 20% of the total members in the SHGs. This is purely a descriptive study. Percentage, average, t test, standard deviation, variance and probability analysis were used. It is found that the social service activities were ranked first followed by mobilisation of the public for women issues. Discussion on individual problems of group members was ranked third and participation in expansion activities ranked fourth. Decision on vote in the time of election and making non-members conscious about the benefits of SHG was ranked fifth and sixth respectively. In order to find out the significant difference in satisfaction of work among the SHG members based on age, the ‘t’ value was calculated and the calculated ‘t’ value was found to be 0.4873 which is lower than the table value 1.97 which is significant at 0.05 level. Therefore the null hypothesis is accepted and concluded that there is no significant difference in satisfaction of work among the SHG members between different age levels of the respondents. The success of women development depends on capacity building and poverty alleviation, which depends in improvement in literacy, better communication skills, better leadership skill, self-help and mutual help. 24% respondents were of the view that better communication and leadership skill; only 3% respondents were of the view that improvement in literacy and 31% respondents were of the view that self-help and mutual help were the reasons for capacity building. The remaining 17 per cent stated that SHGs increase self-confidence & risk bearing.