Self help group as an effective strategy and feasible approach to empower women in India

Empowerment is a process of awareness and capacity building leading to greater participation, greater decision making power and control and transformative action. Empowerment of women signifies harnessing women power by conscientising their tremendous potential and encouraging them to work towards attaining a dignified and satisfying way of life through confidence and competence as person with self-respect, rights and responsibilities. Empowerment as a concept was introduced at the International Women's Conference at Nairobi in 1985. The conference defined empowerment as “A redistribution of social power and control of resources in favour of women. Empowerment is a multi-faceted process which encompasses many aspects i.e. enhancing awareness, increasing access to resources of economic, social and political etc.” In recent years women empowerment has become a subject of great concern for the nations all over the world especially in poor and developing countries. The impact of globalization is seen eventually on position of women in some form or other in most of the developing countries with the variation of degree. The United Nations has also strived hard in an incredible way to draw the due attention of the World Community on this issue in the past years. This study is an attempt to understand and analyze psychological, social and economical benefits accrued by women participating in SHGs and to explore the merits of SHGs as strategy and approach to empower women in India.