Title of the paper: building better future by empowering grassroot women

This paper is the result of an impact assessment conducted for Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) a NGO on their work with grass root women. SSP equips rural women with variety of business skills and which results in empowerment of women entrepreneurs. Overall empowerment of women such as socially, economically & personally. By providing various supports like finance for establishing enterprise, training for running enterprise smoothly etc. It also assist them in strengthening environment by providing training for organic farming and eco friendly goods etc. By empowering rural women in each and every aspect they can manage resources which results in participation in decision making leads to building strong community. The main objective of the paper is to find out whether these activities enabled women to empower as entrepreneur.

Only when women are empowered, we may build a world that is worthwhile to live in. The cause to empower women must not become lighter under any circumstances and there should be persistent & genuine efforts to achieve gender equality. The women's movement and a widespread network of non-Government Organizations which have strong grass-roots existence and deep insight into women's concerns have contributed in inspiring initiatives for the empowerment of women. In this paper the researchers have taken into account various aspects leading to the need for empowerment of women through entrepreneurship by Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP). Swayam Shikshan Prayog based in Mumbai, and began its operations in 1994 in the earthquake affected area Latur district for the reconstruction and rehabilitation. It provided a number of significant lessons that have since been applied to develop a model for disaster management and reconstruction across the country and abroad also.

This paper is descriptive in nature which consists of primary as well as secondary data. Primary data consists of information given by women entrepreneurs (Sakhis) associated with SSP through a pretested questionnaire in Latur, Osmanabad, Beed, Nanded, & Solapur districts. Also through personal interviews with SSP employees & it's higher officials. All the respondents are from Latur, Osmanabad, Beed, Nanded, & Solapur districts. The secondary data includes records from SSP, its annual reports, different articles, case studies, publications, website of SSP, previous studies by the other scholars etc. Information has been analyzed for suggestions & conclusion extensively.

The sample selection for this paper is based on list of Sakhis supplied by SSP, non probability purposive sampling is applied for analysis purpose.

"It is impossible to think about the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. It is impossible for a bird to fly on only one wing" -----Swami Vivekanand