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4. India

by

Keith D'Souza and Liza Thomas
Academy of Human Resource Development
Ahmedabad, India


Acronyms and abbreviations
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
2. Contextual background
3. Four case studies
4. Lessons learnt from the case studies
References


Acronyms and abbreviations

AICP

All India Coordinated Projects

ASAG

Ahmedabad Study Action Group

AUPA

Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority

BMC

Bhal Mahila Committee

BSC

Behavioural Science Centre

DWCRA

Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas

HDFC

Housing Development Finance Corporation

KVIC

Khadi and Village Industries Commission

MLP

Micro Level Planning

NSSO

National Sample Survey Organisation

SEWA

Self-Employed Women's Association

SFT

Shroffs Foundation Trust

TBSU

Technical Backup Support Unit

TLA

Textile Labour Association

Acknowledgments

This report, like most reports of its kind, is the result of the effort and contribution of a variety of people and agencies. While acknowledging our indebtedness to all who have helped in this project, we wish to name in particular the following:

- Professor Roy Carr Hill and Dr Fiona Leach of the Institute of Education of the University of London, and Professor Kenneth King and Simon McGrath of the Centre of African Studies of the University of Edinburgh, who invited us to participate in this project;

- The Overseas Development Administration (Education Division) of Her Majesty's Government of U.K., who sponsored the project and also very kindly funded our participation in the International Labour Organisation's Workshop on Training for Self-Employment through Vocational Training Institutes at Turin in November 1993;

- The management and staff of the Behavioural Science Centre, Utthan Mahiti, the Self-Employed Women's Association, and the Shroffs Foundation Trust, for their willingness to be the subjects of this study and for their generous support;

- The International Labour Organisation Training Centre in Turin for their invitation to participate as observers in the Workshop at Turin in November; and finally

- Mr. Manoj Kumar and Ms. Sarita D'Souza for their secretarial assistance in preparing the project report.

Keith C. D'Souza
Liza Thomas

1. Introduction

The objective of this study is to examine local and national interventions and initiatives in India relevant to the orientation and reorientation of education and training toward self-employment and income generation in four different settings: the regular school setting, the post-basic schooling and training institutions, the modern public and private sectors, and the informal sector.

The study is exploratory in nature. Data have been collected from secondary literature sources, personal interviews and observations, and case studies of select interventions. Given the limitations of time and other resources, the study has had to confine itself to a few significant interventions which could be considered indicative of the trends.

Through a qualitative and subjective analysis of the case studies assisted by the personal experiences of the researchers and information from the literature, the study is intended to derive lessons about how education and training can be geared to promote self-employment and income generation in the informal sector of the economy.

This Indian study examines what non-governmental organizations are doing in the direction of non-formal education and training. Four NGOs have been taken up for the study. All four are located primarily in the state of Gujarat which has one of the highest concentrations of NGOs among all the states of India. The four NGOs are: the Behavioural Science Centre (BSC), Utthan Mahiti, the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), and the Shroffs Foundation Trust (SFT). Each of these was engaged in some form of activity to promote the economic and social development of marginal groups in rural and urban areas through education and training.

While the four NGOs studied do not, by any means, constitute an adequate sample from which to draw rigorous generalizations, they may be considered as representing a major part of the effort of NGOs to promote self-employment in the informal sector in India. Therefore, the inferences and lessons drawn from the study could be a basis for future policy making and intervention in the informal sector in India.

In this report, we first look briefly at the broad socio-economic context in which non-formal education and training for self-employment gain importance in India. We next briefly present case studies of four NGOs engaged in some form of non-formal education and training for self-employment. Finally, we try to derive some lessons and generalizations which may be of use to future planners and policy makers.

2. Contextual background


2.1 The approach to development
2.2 Employment
2.3 Self-employment
2.4 The informal sector
2.5 Non-formal education and the informal sector
2.6 Role of NGOs in education and training for the informal sector


Over the forty and more years of independence, India has made impressive strides in various fields. Once at the mercy of foreign aid to feed its people, it has now attained self-sufficiency in foodgrain production and other agricultural produce. Its rapid industrialization, with particular emphasis on basic and heavy industry, has enabled it to develop much of the infrastructure for industrial growth. Even on the social front, its society, once deeply fragmented on the lines of caste, religion and language differences, has been able to develop a working though tenuous fusion of various social segments. And most important of all, notwithstanding its many aberrations, India has been able to maintain a fairly robust and resilient democratic system of society. The UNDP has ranked India 42 out of 88 countries in terms of the human freedom index' based on 40 different indicators of human freedom (UNDP, 1993). While this may not be much to boast about, it is not insignificant considering that on most of the UNDP's other socioeconomic indices, India shares a place on the bottom rungs with other underdeveloped and worse still - undemocratic societies.

Having looked at the brighter side, however, we must come to terms with the darker. More than 45 years of independence have not enabled India to mitigate some of its more chronic problems. Consider the following select statistics recently published by the Commonwealth Secretariat (1992):

Population (in 1989)

832,535,000

Proportion of population under 15 years of age

37%

Life expectancy

59 years

Infant mortality

96 per 1000

Daily calorie supply per capita

2104

Access to safe water



rural

73%


urban

79%

GNP per capita (in 1989)

US $ 350

Average growth rate of GNP per year

3.2%

Male adult literacy

62%

Female adult literacy

34%

When compared to 130 other countries, India ranks second in terms of population size, 103 in terms of GNP, 81 in adult literacy, 95 in terms of infant mortality, 84 in terms of life expectancy. India's average annual rate of increase in real per capita GNP has been even lower than that of other developing countries (see Table 1)1. Yet there are paradoxes. India has one of the largest forces of trained and technically qualified manpower in the world. Welcome or not, its people participate in major industrial, scientific and other ventures in a large number of places around the world. Its people are found to learn and teach in almost every major university and institute across the globe. And despite the incredible social, cultural and political complexities which bedevil it, India still continues to function, even if sometimes in an anarchic manner.

1 All tables are located at the end of each chapter

2.1 The approach to development

Soon after independence, India launched into the Five Year Plan as a major strategy of socioeconomic development. Planning was intended to ensure a balanced approach to development, blending economic improvement with socialistic ideals such as egalitarianism and social wellbeing. India is currently in the midst of its Eighth Five Year Plan. Among the objectives of the various plans, the prominent ones have been:

- Removal of poverty
- Improvement in standard of living
- Reduction in inequalities of income, wealth and opportunity
- Rapid industrialization with emphasis on basic and heavy industry
- Large expansion of employment opportunities
- Self-sufficiency in foodgrains
- Reforms in the education system to help growth of initiative and enterprise
- Attainment of universal elementary education
- Overall human development through emphasis on health, education, literacy, and basic needs, including drinking water, housing and welfare programmes for the weaker sections.

Admittedly, the translation of lofty slogans regarding the elimination of poverty and improvement in living standards into more concrete policies for action came rather late in the day as it became clear that the standard of living, employment opportunities, etc. could not improve merely by emphasizing industrial and agricultural production and productivity. It was only in the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-81 to 1984-85) that explicit recognition was given to the importance of the rural and unorganized (informal) sector of the economy to national development. The emphasis on universal elementary education for all and access to health facilities came in the Seventh Plan (1985-86 to 1989-90). By the time the country reached the Eighth Plan, it had caught up with the more holistic concept of human development.

The Eighth Five-Year Plan recognises human development as the core of all developmental effort (Aggarwal, 1993). It is only healthy and educated people who can contribute to economic growth which in turn contributes to human well being. The priority sectors of the Plan that contribute towards the realization of this goal are health, education, literacy, and basic needs including drinking water, housing and welfare programmes for the weaker sections. The Eighth Plan also pays special attention to employment in the rural areas.

Improvement in earning opportunities where people reside would reduce the need for migration to the urban areas. Such an expansion of employment opportunities calls for a shift in emphasis in rural development programmes from the creation of the relief-type of employment to the building up of durable productive assets in the rural areas. These assets can enhance productivity and create more job opportunities, leading to sustained development. Thus, we come to the very issues relevant to the topic of this project: employment, education and training.

2.2 Employment

Employment generation has been a recurring objective in all the Five Year Plans of India. The Eighth Plan continues to echo the concern about employment generation but with an even louder voice. Between 1972-73 and 1987-88, overall employment is estimated to have grown at around 2% per annum. Rural employment grew at the rate of 1.8% while in the urban sector it was at a much faster rate of 4% per annum. However, over the same period, the growth of the labour force outstripped that of employment, effectively reducing the advantages of employment generation (Economic Intelligence Service, 1990). (See Table 2).

In the agricultural sector, the increasing population and the trend towards urbanization brought down the share of agriculture in the economy. It became evident that the capacity of the agricultural sector to absorb additional labour was limited. The overall growth rate of employment in the agricultural sector, which was 2.32% per annum during 1972-73 and 1977-88, declined to less than 1% during 1982-83 and 1987-88. Due to the increasing pressure of the population, the average size of operational holding has come down to just 1.82 hectare in 1980-81 from 2.30 hectares in 1970-71 and the number of marginal holdings below one hectare has gone up from 35.68 million in 1970-71 to 50.52 million in 1980-81. The proportion of agricultural labour to land holding has been increasing rapidly (Aggarwal, 1993).

A troubling related trend has been the casualisation of labour - an increase in the proportion of casual labour, relative to self-employed and regular salaried workers over the period (see Table 2 at the end). Also, there has been a decline in the proportion of self-employed in rural areas. While the exact statistics do not appear to be of a high enough order to cause alarm, this is an issue which is likely to be of concern in a developing economy.

Some other relevant features of the employment picture are (Aggarwal, 1993):

1 The unorganised (informal) sector embraces large parts of agriculture, small and household industry, trade professional services, and covers 90% of the total labour force in the country.

2. The growth rate of employment has been relatively high in urban areas, but low in rural areas (see Table 3).

3. Employment of males and females has grown more or less at the same rate, with the rate for males slightly above that for females. In the rural areas, female participation in the labour force is more than 60% whereas it is less than 30% in the urban areas.

4. While all other major sectors experienced over 3.0 percent growth of employment per annum over the period 1978-88 (Table 4), agriculture registered an annual growth of only 0.92 per cent. This rate has been just about the same in the last ten years.

5. In all sectors except agriculture, trade and construction, there has been a deceleration of growth during 1983 to 1987 when compared with the period 1979-1983. In manufacturing, the rate of growth has declined sharply from 3.76 per cent to 2.18 per cent, and in services from 4.49 per cent to 2.06 per cent.

6. Deceleration in the rate of employment growth has been particularly sharp in the organised (formal) sector; it has declined from 2.48 per cent during 1977/78-1983, to 1.38 per cent during 1983-1987/88. Employment in the organised manufacturing sector has virtually stagnated during 1983-1987/88. Thus, an increasingly larger contribution to employment growth in manufacturing has been made by the unorganised sector in recent years.

7. In the rural sector which constitutes a major proportion of the informal economy the proportion of casual labour increased while that of self-employment declined over the period 1977/78 to 1987/88 (Table 5).

The response to this scenario by the Eighth Five Year Plan has been to attempt to raise the level of employment in the agricultural and unorganized (informal) sectors. This is aimed at by the diversification of agriculture into high value crops, development of agro-based and allied employment generation activities, an expanded programme of wasteland and forestry development, greater attention to the needs of the small and decentralized manufacturing sector, strengthening support and infrastructure facilities, and the revamping of programmes of training for entrepreneurship and skill upgradation.

2.3 Self-employment

According to the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), the number in the labour force on April 1,1992 who will be looking for full time new employment opportunities is estimated to be around 23 million. The labour force is projected to increase by about 35 million during 1992-97 and by another 36 million during 1997-2002. Thus the total number of persons requiring employment will be 58 million during 1992-97 and 94 million over the ten year period 1992-2002. Employment growth in the aggregate will have to be about 4% per annum if the goal of providing employment to all is to be achieved by the end of the Eighth Plan. Past experience suggests that an expectation of a 4% rate of employment growth in the formal organized sector is unrealistic (Aggarwal, 1993).

In view of these facts and figures, it is evident that employment growth and economic development have to be sought through the alternative approach of self-employment. But the critical resource shortage in developing countries is the knowledge and skills to enable people to take up productive self-employment.

2.4 The informal sector

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines the informal sector as that part of economic activity which is characterized by certain features like ease of entry, reliance on indigenous resources, family ownership, small scale operation, labour intensive technology, skills acquired outside the formal school system, unregulated and competitive markets. In the Indian context, a wide range of activities falling within the domain of industry, transport and agriculture, both in the rural and the urban areas, can be included in this sector.

India is a predominantly agricultural country with a largely rural economy. The majority of the total population is classified as rural and residing in villages. They derive their livelihood from agriculture, livestock and other homebased activities. They work as cultivators (farmers), farm labourers, artisans like black-smiths, potters, carpenters and leather tanners. Some are engaged in village (cottage/household) industries like cotton, wool and silk spinning, weaving (handlooms), handicrafts, metal crafts and leather crafts, and bidi rollers. Almost 90% of the labour force in the rural areas fall within the purview of the informal sector, consisting of non-salaried self-employed and casual wage workers (see Table 5). As against this, in the urban areas, about 56% fall into the informal sector. On the whole, the informal sector accounts for about 85% of the total work force in the country.

During the Fifth and Sixth Plan periods a number of Government organisations were set up to increase the productivity of the informal sector (for example Handicraft Corporations, Handloom Corporations, etc). Despite these efforts, the informal sector still suffers from a number of traditional problems: exploitation by middle-men, lack of knowledge regarding market and consumer preferences, lack of technical competence, poor quality products, and low labour productivity. Government agencies, saddled as they are with the problems of bureaucracy, dependence on erratic or inflexible government policies and red-tape, have not achieved a high measure of success in developing and promoting the interests of the informal sector at the operational level. While attempts to rectify the problem have been made by way of decentralization and involvement of local agencies in planning, they have met with only limited success.

2.5 Non-formal education and the informal sector

The sheer magnitude of the problem, combined with limited resources, makes it extremely difficult for formal education and training to fill the knowledge and skill gap. Apart from this, formal education in India is known to be ineffective - and even counterproductive - in preparing people for self-employment. Universities and institutes of higher education in the country, which provide fairly low cost, government subsidised education, are notorious for producing unemployed, aspiring white-collar workers. Even worse, the formal education system which attracts people from the rural areas, often weans them away from their traditional occupations. This is the reason why non-formal education and training is increasingly being considered a more effective option.

Non-formal education here is meant to help the informal sector in developing knowledge, skills and attitudes for self-employment and small business creation. It can be broadly defined

in terms of the basic learning that occurs in development programmes related to areas such as literacy, health, family planning, early childhood development and maternal education, agricultural extension and community mobilisation. (Shaeffer, 1992)

During 1979-80, non-formal education was introduced as an alternative strategy to impart education to children, who for various reasons could not attend formal schools. Some relevant information about non-formal education is contained in Table 6.

Community Polytechnics

The scheme of community polytechnics was instituted under the Direct Central Assistance Scheme in 1978-79 in 36 polytechnics on an experimental basis, with a view to ensure for the rural society a fair share of benefits from the investments in technical education. The scheme envisaged that the polytechnics would act to disseminate science and technology applications in rural areas. They were also intended to generate self and wage-employment opportunities through non-formal training. Such training emphasized competence and need-based courses in various trades or multi-skills. They were aimed at poverty alleviation, socio-economic upliftment and qualitative improvement in the life style of people, particularly the rural masses. About 100 technical/occasional trades relevant to respective local socioeconomic conditions were identified for imparting skill development training, oriented towards employment generation. There are at present about 159 community polytechnics. They carry out the following activities:

- Socio-economic survey
- Manpower development and training
- Technology transfer
- Technical and support services towards entrepreneurship development; and
- Information dissemination.

The community polytechnics have set up extension centres in far-flung rural areas so that the services and facilities that could be made available through the system are provided right at the doorstep of the villages. Community polytechnics have made a significant contribution towards promoting the transfer of a large number of tested and approved items of technology to the rural areas including big-gas plants, wind-mills, smokeless stoves, rural latrines, solar appliances, agricultural implements, etc. These institutions have been able to establish proper linkages and effective collaboration and co-ordination with a number of government and non-government agencies. A number of community polytechnics are directly involved in the execution of All India Co-ordinated Projects (AICP) on water, health and sanitation for rural women sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. A number of them are also actively engaged in the planning and implementation of community support services such as community big-gas system, community waste disposal, and rural health services in water, health and sanitation awareness programmes.

Employment generation through the scheme is mainly from the non-formal short-term training, through competency and need-based courses in various trades, or in multi-skills depending upon the requirement. These institutions, on an average train about 25,000 rural youth every year. Of these, about 35-40% are absorbed into self-employment.

2.6 Role of NGOs in education and training for the informal sector

Despite the attempts of the Government, education and training have not been accessible for many in the informal sector. Apart from problems of location, disruption of regular worklife and other similar difficulties, formal education and training are not easy to access. For the poor who constitute a majority of the workforce in the informal sector, the relevant cost of education and training is not the monetary cost but the opportunity cost of discontinuing, even temporarily, their occupations of earning their livelihoods on a day-to-day basis. Unless they see a direct linkage between programmes and their own income-generating capabilities, it is rare that they will persevere in acquiring education. The development of productive knowledge, skills and competence therefore depends upon appropriate programmes of education, skill development and infrastructure development.

Although there do exist training interventions by the government for the informal sector, most skill requirements in the sector are developed through means such as traditional apprenticeship. To devise and deliver training programmes oriented to the specific skill requirements of the client group and designed to take into account the variety of social, cultural, local, political and technological factors affecting it, therefore demands a high level of expertise, combined with insight, empathy, and flexibility of approach. It is largely for these reasons that NGOs have been more successful than the Government in education and training in the informal sector.

The Government has been honest enough to acknowledge the importance of involving NGOs in the various developmental tasks of the country. As early as in the First Five Year Plan it was noted that NGOs would have to bear the major responsibility for organizing various activities in different fields of welfare and human development. Over the years, this recognition has increased in scope and emphasis. The Seventh Plan explicitly expressed the intention to involve NGOs in the implementation of developmental programmes. particularly in the rural areas. The period since India's independence witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of voluntary organizations. One estimate was that between 1953 and 1980 the number of NGOs increased five-fold from about 1800 to more than 8000. The actual number of NGOs in India engaged in developmental tasks especially by way of employment generation and employment-related education and training is likely to be much larger as there are a significant number of small action groups operating inconspicuously in the remoter parts of the country.

The general approach of the NGOs in non-formal education and training is best exemplified in the case of the Jawaja project in Rajasthan, by one of its founders, Ravi Mathai:

The relationship between the villagers and the institution (NGO) is perhaps the strongest with regard to institutions which provide inputs such as technology, design, finance and general inputs. The learning that takes place relates to the choice of products and technologies, the assembly, use and maintenance of capital equipment, the technologies of materials, the design of products for diversification, costing, accounting, making provisions for the future. These essentially relate to their management of new opportunities and accompany the more basic aspects of their learning. (Mathai, 1985)

The four case studies described in this report illustrate different approaches typical of NGOs engaged in promoting self-employment and economic development in India. The Behavioural Science Centre (BSC) follows an approach of education for conscientization and mobilization of deprived sections of society by giving them the skills for organizing themselves for economic and social emancipation. The Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) adopts the more common but no less effective approach of combining training in self-employment skills with providing a network of other support services. Utthan Mahiti relies on a strategy of developing and disseminating knowledge and know-how appropriate to the needs of local people and the creation of an enabling environment rather than merely providing training in job oriented skills. The Shroffs Foundation Trust adopts a strategy of integrated socio-economic development which includes services and welfare dispensation along with the promotion of training and education.

TABLE 1- Average Annual Rate of Increase in Real Per Capital GHP

Source: Economic Intelligence Service Economic Outlook Bombay: Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, June 1980.

TABLE 2 - Workers by Category of Employment (percent)


1972-73

1987-88

Self-employment

61.4

56.3

Salaried regular employment

15.3

13.7

Casual wage employment

23.3

29.9

Source: Economic Intelligence Service, Economic Outlook Bombay: Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, June 1990.

TABLE 3 - Growth of Employment * 1977-78 to 1967-88


Rural

Urban

Total


M

F

T

M

F

T

M

F

T

Employment (million)

1977-78

136.2

59.8

196.0

36.1

7.7

43.8

172.3

67.5

239.8

1983

147.9

65.9

213.8

45.4

9.6

55.0

193.3

75.5

268.8

1987-88

157.7

70.5

228.2

51.7

11.0

62.7

209.4

81.5

290.9

Annual Rates of Growth (%)

1977-78 to 1983

1.51

1.77

1.59

4.23

4.18

4.22

2.11

2.06

2.10

1983 to 1987-88

1.43

1.52

1.46

2.97

2.95

2.96

1.80

1.71

1.77

1977-78 to 1987-88

1.48

1.66

1.53

3.66

3.62

3.66

1.97

1.90

1.95

*Usual Principal Status (UPS) M - Male, F - Female, T - Total

Source: NSSO (32nd, 38th and 43rd Rounds) and Estimates of Population based on 1971 & 1981 Census population and provisional population total of 1991 Census.

TABLE 4 - Growth Rate of Employment* by Major Sectors

Sector

1977-78 to 1983

1983 to 1987-88

1977-78 to 1987-88


(per cent per annum)

Agriculture

0.91

0.94

0.92

Mining

6.32

5.68

6.03

Manufacturing

3.76

2.18

3.05

Construction

7.93

13.03

10.19

Electricity, Gas and Water Supply

6.01

3.15

4.71

Trade

3.52

3.83

3.66

Transport, storage and communication




Services

6.66

2.35

4.70


4.49

2.06

3.39

* Usual Principle Status (age group 15+)

Source: NSSO (32nd, 38th and 43rd Rounds) and Estimates of Population based on 1971 & 1981 Census population and provisional population total of 1991 Census.

TABLE 5 - Percentage of Workers* by Category of Employment


Rural

Urban

Total


M

F

T

M

F

T

M

F

T

Self-Employment

1977-78

62.2

56.3

60.4

39.9

42.2

40.3

57.9

54.8

57.0

1983

59.5

54.1

57.8

40.2

37.3

39.7

55.0

52.0

54.1

1987-88

57.5

55.1

56.7

41.0

38.6

40.5

53.8

53.1

53.6

Regular Salaried Employment

1977-78

10.9

3.7

8.6

47.2

30.8

44.2

17.9

6.6

14.6

1983

10.6

3.7

8.5

44.5

31.8

42.2

18.5

7.3

15.3

1987-88

10.4

4.7

8.6

44.4

34.7

42.7

18.0

8.3

15.2

Casual Wage Employment

1977-78

26.9

40.0

31.0

12.9

27.0

15.5

24.2

38.6

28.4

1983

29.9

42.2

33.7

15.3

30.9

18.1

26.5

40.7

30.6

1987-88

32.1

40.2

34.7

14.6

26.7

16.8

28.2

38.6

31.2

* Usual Principle Status M - Male, F - Female, T - Total

Source: NSSO (32nd, 38th and 43rd Rounds) and Estimates of population based on 1971 & 1981 Census population and provisional population total of 1991 Census.

TABLE 6 - Non-Formal Education: Achievements

1.

Amount spent (Rupees in Crores)

50.00

2.

NFE Centres brought to function (in lakhs) (cumulative)

2.72

3.

Number of exclusive girls centres sanctioned (cumulative)

81,607

4.

Number of voluntary organisations approved for NFE programme (cumulative)

419

5.

NFE Centres brought to function by voluntary agencies (cumulative)

27,342

6.

Estimated enrollment (in lakhs)

68.00

7.

Number of experimental innovative projects approved (cumulative)

49

8.

Number of District Resource Units

19

9.

Number of States/UTs covered

18

1 lakh = 100,000 1 Crore = 10,000,000
Source: Government of India, Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource
Development: Annual Report 1991-92 Part - 1

3. Four case studies


3.1 The behavioural science centre
3.2 Utthan Mahiti
3.3 Self-employed women's association (SEWA)
3.4 Shroffs foundation trust (SFT)


3.1 The behavioural science centre

The BSC is a small voluntary agency which is an offshoot of the St Xavier's Non-formal Education Society in Ahmedabad, founded by a group of teachers of the St Xavier's College. Although St Xavier's College is a Jesuit-run educational institute, the group of about 24 members of BSC is a mixed group of secular-minded people from different religious backgrounds. The objectives of the BSC are to work for the socio-economic development of the poor tribal communities in some of the backward regions of Gujarat state.

Heavily influenced in its early stages by the work of Paolo Freire and the ideology of liberation theology as developed in South America, BSC adopted the process of conscientization as the basis of its education and training for social development. Its work has a two-pronged focus. One is to develop social awareness which will lead to unity among the often disparate groups of tribals, generate self respect among them and empower them to organize themselves for protection from the exploitation of upper-caste communities in their regions who have traditionally been oppressors. The second focus is to increase the economic power of the community through techno-managerial education that will give people the knowledge and skills necessary to develop and run organisations for economic production and employment. BSC's approach stresses dialogue with the people and community building. Education therefore is not merely an academic exercise but a joint effort in which trainers and trainees, outsiders and the local population work together. (St Xavier's Non-formal Education Society, 1990-91).

The Centre operates mainly in two regions: the Bhal region of Cambay district in Gujarat and the Dhanduka Taluka region in Ahmedabad district. The work of the Centre is focused on the members of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes who constitute the lowest levels of the social structure and have traditionally been exploited classes.

Training and Education

The training offered by BSC is of three types. Training in social awareness is provided at the grassroots level for development workers from among the local population. This training relies heavily on inputs from the behavioural sciences and is intended to bring about attitudinal and motivational change among the community. The second type of training is in specific skills required by development workers at the grassroots level. They include skills in developing and organizing cooperatives for social forestry and farming, fishery production, sericulture and other income generating activities. A third type of training is in group dynamics which is aimed at potential leaders from among the local communities who are employed by the Centre as field workers and organizers. Such training is intended to develop competence for organizing local communities into cooperative societies for employment and income generation.

Organizing for Income Generation

Apart from training, BSC is deeply involved in organizing the local communities into cooperative societies for agriculture and other employment activities. The economic and social system in the communities has led to the marginalization of poor and landless farmers who depend upon the upper castes for their livelihood. These farmers work as agricultural labourers. Since agricultural labour is seasonal, the labourers are unemployed when the cultivation season is over.

BSC's first step was to acquire for the labourers land from the government. Cooperative societies were formed which held the land in common ownership. All households of the scheduled caste community were members of the cooperatives. Twelve cooperative societies comprising a total membership of about 740 members were formed by 1989 in the Bhal region of Cambay. These included cooperatives for afforestation, sericulture, sweet water fisheries, and for the acquisition of farming inputs like credit, fertilizers and machinery. A federation of the cooperative societies was formed in 1989 to oversee the management of the cooperative since small cooperative societies at the village level had neither sufficient managerial and technical competence, nor the necessary influence required to deal with a host of external agencies and officials such as government bureaucrats, financial organizations, etc. BSC acts as an advisory body to the federation and helps it in training the members of the cooperatives and providing managerial inputs. The federation initiated steps to establish the cooperatives' own networks for procurement of agricultural inputs, processing and marketing. Such activities have considerably reduced the indebtedness of the farmers. BSC has also organized fishing cooperatives. The Varasada fishery cooperative was established on the Kanawal reservoir with a membership of 123 members, under a scheme of the National Cooperative Development Corporation. Members of the cooperative obtain a fixed payment per kilogram of fish, and the cooperative takes care of all administrative and managerial functions. It also provides credit and training to the members.

Support Services

BSC has laid great emphasis on the development of an enabling environment to facilitate employment and income generation. Four of the major activities in this direction are the starting of a fertilizer credit scheme, a credit scheme for land redemption, a community health project, and activities to promote the development of women.

Fertiliser Credit Scheme

Small and marginal farmers belonging to lower castes are very often denied access to the formal systems of credit. The fertilizer credit scheme envisages the supply of chemical fertilizers like urea, phosphates and potash on short term credit at an interest rate of 12% per annum. The programme is managed through village committees of about six members in each village. These committees maintain records of individual farmers and determine the quantum of support to be given to each and manage the system of fertilizer distribution after receiving the fertilizers from the Federation. Organising the repayment of schedules is also the responsibility of the committees.

Land Redemption

A credit scheme for redemption of mortgaged agricultural land was initiated with a working capital fund of Rs 4,20,000 in 1992. 210 families are involved in this project. Village level managing committees were formed and guidelines were agreed upon between the members and the Federation. According to this a loan is given which is to he repaid over a period of two or three years out of the agricultural income from the redeemed land. The interest is 12% per annum.

Community Health Project

Six member health committees were formed. They play an important role in the management of the health programme. Health workers were selected who were supported at the village level in the management of the programme and at the central level in the medical and training aspects of the programme. Training is given in clinical skills (involving practice in treatment and explanation of the theory behind it); in laboratory skills, in using simple instruments, handling existing health services and medical facilities, and maintaining accounts and stocks. A doctor monitors the health workers' activities. The health workers practice the skills they learned at the village level. The doctor checks and trains the health worker in diagnosis, use of drugs and in follow up of patients.

Development of Women

Women's committees (Mahila Mandals) were developed in the villages. Bhal Mahila Committee (BMC) is formed as an area level body. The village committees selected a representative for the BMC. Camps were organised for these mandals to empower the women. Training camps were organised for them with a focus on awareness, group building and group culture. Gender related issues, the social status of widows, sexual exploitation of women while going out for agricultural labour etc., were discussed in the training camps.

The village level Mahila Mandals developed informal savings groups. Each group has its own village committee of six to nine women. Two or three women in each committee take the responsibility for managing the money collected every month. Women contribute Rs. 5/- to Rs. 10/- per month as savings. The federation provided the necessary education to the. members on conditions for making savings and credit systems viable, information on the number of savings groups, their membership and capital mobilised, possible plans of action for the future etc.

Conclusion

Education, training and research are the basic tools BSC uses to develop the rural people. The process involves understanding the profile and problems of the people, making them aware of the development opportunities, helping them to realise their potential and organising them for action. Gradually BSC empowers them when they are adequately equipped with skills and knowledge and ready to take care of the activities initiated by BSC.

3.2 Utthan Mahiti

Utthan Mahiti, registered as a society under the Public Trust Act, is based at Ahmedabad. It was part of the Ahmedabad Study Action Group (ASAG), a voluntary agency specialising in rural housing and development programmes in Ahmedabad district. It was founded by a team of young professionals who were involved in block level planning during their association with the scheme of Micro Level Planning (MPL) of 1978/1979 launched by the Government of India for full employment in Dhanduka Taluka 2, Ahmedabad district.

2 A geographical Unit like a county

Mahiti works in the Dholera area of Dhanduka Taluka. It is a low-lying coastal area around the Gulf of Khambhat. It suffers from hostile geo-climatic environment: high salinity, erratic rains, monsoon, inundation, temperature extremes, and coastal cyclones. The main obstacles to development in this area are scarcity of drinking water, large wastelands, poor agricultural lands, large scale family migration, an exploitative socio-economic structure, government indifference to local problems and poor levels of health and education. A large majority of the people in the area are economically backward. Most of them are indebted and are forced to resort to seasonal migration searching for employment.

Utthan attempted to organize the community around the major issues of the area. It started its functions as an agency to promote information, develop skills, make people aware of the Government's development programmes and train local people to become leaders and form village level organizations. Village level organizations of women and youth known as Mahila Mandals 3 and Yuvak Mandals 4 were formed.

3 Women's Committees

4 Youth Committees

The team tried to understand the basic problems of the people themselves rather than going by the views of the Government officials. The Government officials held the view that the area was backward because of resource scarcity and the nature of the people who are lazy and do not cooperate with the development programmes. The group found that resources were plentiful and only needed to be used. It was necessary for people to be informed about their hidden resources and be provided with proper information about the development programmes of the Government.

So Utthan Mahiti decided to help villagers by helping them obtain access to development schemes and organise them. They took the following measures to reach the above objective:

1. Establishing an information network at the village level.

2. Training people to take decisions on the basis of analysis and technological evaluation of the information and situation instead of imposing hierarchial decisions based on authority.

3. Creating community participation through formal or informal groups of local people and creating a social entrepreneurial force.

4. Liaising with and involving scientific and technological institutions to help translate their decisions into technologically and economically viable action plans.

5. Converting these action plans into administrative schemes.

6. Helping with the management and monitoring of these schemes through local resources to the best possible extent.

7. Achieving community confidence through demonstration and experimentation.

Utthan named this programme as Mahiti. Specific activities were undertaken to generate, process and disseminate development information to the village people, to provide information on the problems and potentials of the area to Government agencies, to demonstrate projects, to train people and to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas among people, Government officials, scientists and technicians. The basic idea was to develop a rapport with the people, communicate with them, understand their problems, enable them to find out solutions and make them self reliant.

Activities

The first activity was related to solving the drinking water problem. A cluster of 7 villages of Dholera area was undertaken for the purpose.

Water Resources

Expertise from industrial, educational, technological, and research and developmental organisations was mobilized by Utthan Mahiti to solve the drinking water problem in this area. The plastic lined (agrifrilon coated) ponds were found appropriate to this coastal saline area as an effective rain water harvesting device. Eight ponds were plastic lined. Mahiti experimented with other new water development methods also, such as roof water collection during the monsoons, solar distillation and reverse osmosis. Not all these however have been successful on account of various technical problems. But these systems also were not feasible for the villagers. A Centre for Water Resources Management was developed, which offers professional services, educational programmes, skills, know-how, and advocacy that assist locally based communities in better water resource management. A systematic building of awareness and a training system for involving people in the management of their own resources are being evolved by the centre.

Social Forestry

Other than drinking water scarcity, another major problem of the area is saline waste land. In the Bhal area, 50% of the land is saline waste land. There are many reasons for this. There is no underground sweet water table in this area. The existing highly saline water table causes salt deposits to be left on the surface during the summer. Furthermore, the land is flat and close to the sea and is susceptible to periodic inundation. This causes the soil to become even more saline.

Social afforestation is one of the main activities in Mingalpur and Bhangadh villages. Women in these villages obtained 20 hectares of land on lease for 15 years from the Government as a common property. The task is to revegetate the saline land. Utthan Mahiti supported them by helping them to plan, design and to identify long-term and short term goals related to the activities.

The Mahila Mandals began to collect karedi, the seeds of Salvodara, which are used to produce non-edible oil for the cosmetics industry. The members of the Mahila Mandals collect the seeds from Salvadora growing wild on the coast. With the demonstration of the profitability of Salvadora, the farmers became interested in cultivating it.

Mahiti also worked out a method of commercially cultivating this plant. This method involved building bunds (small dams) to prevent sea ingress and preserve rain water, growing suitable plants and shrubs to create ground cover that would increase big-mass deposits on the ground and improve both the texture of the soil as well as the fertility, changing the method of planting to improve rain water harvesting and allow growth of grass, and constructing farm ponds to provide water to help the plants tide over the initial, crucial, post-transplantation periods.

The project was designed using local technology with the help of the Waste Land Development Board initially on an experimental basis. The success encouraged farmers to adopt this method of cultivation. The mandal also develops nurseries to raise seedlings for the plots. For this purpose specialized training is required for nursery raisers, plantation supervisors and others involved. Mahiti undertakes these training programmes every year. The programmes start in the month of December and continue up to April. Special emphasis is given in these programmes to developing women as entrepreneurs in the rural market. Experienced people of these villages play a supportive role in the training programme.

This intervention of developing wasteland undertaken by Mahiti oriented the villagers towards a new approach to income generation. The household economy was one of the main pillars of the social structure of the community. The new methods of income generation helped change the seasonal migration patterns of the region. The bifurcation of loan and subsidy components and their availability to the people in time, especially in summer, is an important purpose of the programme. This is to enable people to stay back in their villages and work in the wastelands, to help them stabilize their social structure and family life. The programmes also helped women spend more time with their families and allowed children to join schools since the families did not need to migrate seasonally.

Mahiti tries to develop the people by changing their attitude towards social problems. Discussions are organised in small groups on issues relating to communalism and religious sentiments, values, unemployment, existing social structure etc. Demonstration of big-gas plants, women's exposure tour etc. gives opportunities for the women to come together. Various small groups have evolved for activities like the management of drinking water, savings credit, health training and unemployment.

Tiger Prawn Production

Another activity is tiger prawn production and marketing. This was planned as an income generating project in Dholera. Rearing of some local species as well as other varieties was also planned. A team from Utthan Mahiti carried out a break-even analysis and decided the minimum price to sell the prawns. A market survey was undertaken for the purpose. The group is planning to try out prawn cultivation in sea water, and in village ponds apart from the underground brackish bore water.

Market Survey

The villagers, especially the women, felt that they benefit much less when they sell various products in the market because they are unable to understand the market, its fluctuations etc. at the right time. Utthan Mahiti carried out a study for evolving a different methodology of sale and purchase of farm-based nonagricultural products, household commodities etc.

Bio Gas

Mahiti created awareness among villagers regarding big-gas. Information regarding technical and financial aspects was given to them. Mahiti helps in implementing big-gas plants and trains the villagers in the operation and maintenance of big-gas plants.

Health

Health camps and community health meetings were organized to make the village women strengthen their knowledge and skills in working effectively as health workers. The camps focused on presentation and treatment of different diseases like T.B., worms, and gynaecological problems. Village women were identified and encouraged to join the health workers group as a result of health meetings.

Communication

Video documentation training of members for operating communication equipment, showing videos and slides in the villages, making posters, pamphlets, exhibitions and a video library are activities of the Communication Cell set up by Mahiti.

Due to climatic conditions and the quality of the land, income from agriculture is unstable and meagre. Formal credit facilities for the villagers like bank, government and other institutions are not easily available. Banks do not provide small loans to the villagers. The timings, procedures and regulations also prevent illiterate people from approaching them. So the villagers depend on the darbars (money lenders) to get loans. The darbars provide loans easily and without complex procedures. However, only men could avail themselves of the loans and the system is extremely exploitative due to high interest rates, manipulation of records and physical intimidation by the money lenders. With the help of Utthan Mahiti, the women from Bhangadh village decided to start a savings group in 1985. Utthan supported the idea and provided training and information. After six months another group was formed in Mingalpur village. At present there are 45 members in Bhangadh and 54 in Mingalpur. Woman can become members by paying a nominal deposit of Rs.10 and attending one meeting. All the members have access to loan funds as soon as they join the group. The repayment schedule can be decided by the borrower at the time when she takes up the loan. The committee members discuss and decide the priority of members and allot loans accordingly. The women's savings group helped the villagers pay off their debts and liberated them from the exploitation of the local money lenders. Members even felt that the attitude of men towards women changed and men started accepting their abilities and strength.

Conclusion

Utthan Mahiti's role is one of a support and information giver. It initiates the villagers to sit together and appraise the situations prevalent in the villages, get a clearer idea of the problems existing and work out appropriate projects accordingly. It also plays a major role in getting governmental and other support required for such projects.

The various activities undertaken by Utthan Mahiti 5 were in building lined ponds with the help of people to solve drinking water problems, saline waste land development, prawn cultivation, charcoal-making, bio-gas, community health programmes and organizing and training self help groups so that the village people themselves learn to solve their problems and become self reliant.

5 References in this Section 3.2 were drawn from Progress Reports and other secondary data on Utthan Development Action Planning Team.

3.3 Self-employed women's association (SEWA)

The Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) is an organisation of women engaged in income generating activities. It is registered under the Trade Union Act, 1926. 'Sewa' means service in Gujarati language. It is a unique trade union in the sense that it serves unorganized self-employed women where the self-employed have no real history of organizing.

Background

Sewa is an offshoot of the Textile Labour Association (TLA), a labour union founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1918. The TLA had a women's wing which worked for the development and welfare of working class women. Its main activities were training, production, unionization and research. The section trained women in production activities such as sewing, embroidery, knitting, doll making, spinning, printing, composition, typewriting, radio servicing and home help service, as well as in civic education, modern house-keeping, and family health.

In the 1970's, a survey was conducted to probe the complaints of some women tailors against exploitation by contractors. The survey was an eye opener to the problems of unorganized self-employed women. The majority of the unorganized population engaged in income generating activities were women and were not protected by unionization, government legislation and policies. Employment security also was missing. They were exploited by contractors, money lenders, and even harassed by the police and government officials for using the market place for their trade. Even though they worked hard they lost income in the process of buying raw materials, hiring tools and equipment, arranging cash for working capital and selling their products either wholesale or retail. At each of these steps the money lenders, suppliers, and wholesale dealers exploited the unorganized and illiterate women. Under the leadership of Ms. Elaben Bhatt, the women's section of the TLA decided to organize the women engaged in income generating activities such as trades and services. Thus was formed the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in 1972.

By 1981, SEWA separated from TLA due to certain ideological differences. Now SEWA is affiliated to other international labour federations like the International Union for Food and Allied Workers (IUF), Geneva, the International Federation of Plantation Agricultural and Allied Workers (IFPAAW), Geneva, the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation (ITGLWF), Brussels, and the International Federation for Chemical and Energy Workers (ICEF), Brussels.

Structure

The women are organized on the basis of their trade. Any woman can become a member by paying the annual membership of Rs.5/-. SEWA developed a representative board of group leaders elected from each different section. Trade committees representing hand-cart pullers, vegetable vendors, garment makers, used garment dealers, junk smiths, milk maids and miscellaneous workers were formed. The group leaders provide a communication channel between SEWA and the members since they know the members and their problems, their houses and their economic viability. Every three years a Representative Council is elected and the Council elects the Executive Committee consisting of 25 members. The president of SEWA is elected from the trade group which has the maximum membership. In 1992 the total membership of SEWA was 41,887, of which about 58% were urban based members and the remaining rural.

TABLE 7

Trade and Services

Number of members

Vendors

4,820

(Vegetable, Fruit, Old clothes, Kerosene, Fish, Eggs, Basic consumer provision sellers) (Urban)


Labour & Services

13,380

(Tobacco processing workers, Agricultural workers, Plantation workers, Milk producers, Cleaners, Paper pickers, Head loaders, Hand cart pullers, Contract labour, Other service providers)


Home Based Workers

23,667

(Beedi 6 rollers, Agarbatti, Papad makers, Ready made garment workers, Embroiderers, Bead workers, Weavers, Bamboo workers, Carpenters, Black smiths, Other home based producers) (Urban - 24207, Rural - 17660)


Total:

41,867

6 Local cigarette made of leaves
Source: SEWA Information Brochure 1992

Activities

SEWA identified various occupations in which women were engaged and classified them into three categories:

1. Small scale vendors, traders and hawkers who sell goods such as vegetables, fruits, fish, eatables, household goods, garments and other similar types of products.

2. Home based producers such as weavers, potters, beedi rollers, agarbatti 7 workers, papad rollers, garment stitchers, processors of agricultural produce and handicrafts producers.

7 Incense sticks

3. Labourers who sell their services including agricultural labourers, construction workers, contract labourers, hand cart pullers, head loaders, washer women, cooks, rag pickers, forest produce gatherers, cleaners and other providers of service

SEWA then organised the women into unions and cooperatives.

SEWA's activities can be broadly grouped into four: union activities, training for employment, organizing cooperatives, and support services.

Union Activities

Union activities involve organizing women into a labour union, to fight against low wages, exploitation by contractors, lack of social security, lack of protective legislation, displacement from markets, and other problems. The various forms of struggle include processions, satyagraha 8, legal action and strikes.

8 A Gandhian form of peaceful protest

SEWA provides legal aid for the members as and when required and lobbies to change policy and laws at the national and state levels. For example, SEWA took up with the Supreme Court the matter of street hawkers who used to be periodically harassed by the police for their illegal occupation of the market place. The Supreme Court granted a verdict in favour of the hawkers. The court declared that vendoring was a fundamental right. The hawkers were eventually granted temporary licences.

Self-Employment Training

SEWA believes that total empowerment of women is possible only through their economic independence. To enable women to take up self-employment, SEWA has been providing training in a number of activities. On the basis of a socio-economic survey of women in 15 villages of the Devdholera region, SEWA identified the women who were already involved in activities like spinning, dyeing, cleaning raw wool etc. Weaving was traditionally considered a man's job and women were allowed only to help in pre-weaving activities. SEWA decided to give training to the women to develop skills in pottery making and weaving. They also started the amber charka 9 project in the village of Devdholera under the Right To Work scheme of the Khadi 10 and Village Industries Commission (KVIC). SEWA supplied the raw materials and the charkha to the women. Women were given training in operating charkhas and the produce was supplied to KVIC. The wages were paid by SEWA. The projects started with 25 women in one village, but 175 women joined for training from nearby villages within one year. The women worked six to eight hours a day and earned between Rs. 150/- to Rs. 250/-, which was more than what they could earn as agricultural labourers at that time.

9 A cotton spinning wheel used in rural cottage industries in India.

10 Home-spun cotton cloth

The other training activities that SEWA started were for weaving of khadi blankets, sarees and floor rugs, pottery making and basket making. Most of the activities were traditionally done by men and it was not easy to initiate women into such activities. Men trainers initially refused to train the women. But SEWA was able to start ten weaving centres within a year for training under the Training for Rural Youth in Self-Employment Scheme of the government.

A tailoring class was opened in 1979. After sufficient training, production units were started where readymade garments are produced and sold in the villages and in Ahmedabad city by trained women.

Co-operatives

In 1978, SEWA started working for a dairy co-operative for women. Milk societies were monopolized by men and the upper castes. So it was necessary to register a milk society only for women. A loan of Rs. 50,000/- was sanctioned from the SEWA Bank. SEWA arranged a revolving fund to give cattle loans for women. Ten co-operatives were registered in the year 1980 from Dholka block.

SEWA helps the women to form the co-operative and provides them with technical help, management know-how, access to working capital and training. SEWA's role is only in helping in policy matters and maintaining the solidarity of the co-operatives once they are established and become self-sufficient.

There are 60 co-operatives sponsored by SEWA at present. They fall into the following five categories: artisan co-operatives, land based co-operatives, livestock co-operatives, trading co-operatives, and service co-operatives.

SEWA also helps individual co-operatives to link with larger co-operative movements. In 1992 the Gujarat State Women's Co-operative Federation was formally registered. The federation ensures active leadership of women in the co-operative movement, raises issues concerning raw materials, marketing, working capital, working tools, work space etc. at the state level with policy makers. It also provides training and support services to the members of the federation. There are 41 women's co-operatives affiliated to the federation at present with a total working capital of Rs. 70,000/-.

Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) is a government scheme aimed at income generation. Using this scheme, the Banaskantha Women's Project organized 660 women in 32 villages to help them obtain employment and generate income. It was formally registered in 1992 as the Banaskantha DWCRA Groups Association.

Support Services

Unlike in the formal sector, in the informal sector people earn low incomes and do not receive any social security. There are no insurance schemes, creche facilities, provident fund or maternity facilities for the self-employed. SEWA is trying to provide such facilities through support services. These include the Sewa Bank, which has 35,682 members and the Sewa Academy.

Sewa Bank

The difficulties which women faced in obtaining finances prompted SEWA to start the SEWA Bank with the help of money collected from members. In July 1974, the Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank was inaugurated by the Governor of Gujarat.

The functions of the co-operative SEWA Bank are to provide a service to its members, to provide infrastructure to nationalised banks to help small clients, to provide safe custody of the cash members receive as loans, to give training in banking habits to the members, to promote thrift, to provide purchasing services, to guide in marketing goods, and to provide technical help in production, storage, processing, designing and sales services.

The bank is designed to suit the requirements of the members. Since the members are illiterate and workers don't have time to visit the bank as and when required, procedures and formalities have been simplified. They are provided with a savings box in which they can keep their savings every day and the bank officials collect it from them. A loan is given to the member as and when required on guarantee of a SEWA member.

The SEWA Bank started various insurance schemes for SEWA members. They also try to develop housing services for SEWA members. Other activities include child-care and health-care co-operatives, social security insurance including work security schemes and a life insurance scheme. SEWA also provides legal aid, legal education and assists workers in their legal struggles in court.

As part of the housing services, a survey of the housing conditions of 1,000 SEWA members was conducted. Members were assisted in applying for plots of land for housing. Those who obtained land were given guidance as to how to construct houses on these plots. SEWA initiated negotiations with the Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUPA) and the Gujarat Government for allotting land and helping in housing services for the members.

SEWA Academy

SEWA Academy identifies and gives training to the leaders of members to carry forward the SEWA movement. The training curriculum is designed keeping this objective in mind. Merit certificates and group photographs are distributed at the end of the training. Thirty such training sessions were organised in 1992 in which 719 women participated.

Other training programmes include:

- DWCRA group leader training.
- New SEWA organisers orientation training.
- Training of trainers.
- Training on SEWA for visitors.

SEWA has so far organised and conducted vocational training programmes covering a total of 8,650 women in a wide range of trades and occupations such as charka spinning, embroidery, soap making, plumbing and roof tile making. It has also conducted welfare development programmes covering more than 3000 people in 1992 alone. SEWA Academy facilities were used for training and other activities, including literacy, communication, research and documentation.

In 1982, SEWA started a fortnightly magazine to provide a forum for presentation of experiences, ideas and viewpoints emerging from SEWA's work. It has been published successfully for 11 years now.

Video SEWA was formed in 1984 as a developmental tool. SEWA women were given intensive training in using the video as a development tool. Video SEWA developed a fully fledged studio and several programmes were produced for teaching, training and orienting SEWA members and organizers in SEWA activities. Several video tapes depicting the lives and struggles of self-employed women were made.

The research publication and documentation centre undertakes many research studies with regard to the lives of poor women. SEWA also started a design library both as a resource centre for artisans and also to document, preserve and disseminate their designs and skills among the artisans themselves. The design library collects samples, prepares reports on feasible designs, develops new ones and facilitates the exchange of ideas and designs between artisans. At the design library, the designs are the collective property of all artisan women.

Conclusion

Today, SEWA is working in 101 villages in Ahmedabad district. The employment activities are through 23 women's dairy co-operatives, 6 artisan women's co-operatives, 12 land development and nursery groups, 40 community health workers and health centres. 95 self-managed savings and credit groups are helping women build up an asset base, including the recovery of mortgaged lands. In seven villages the milk and weavers co-operatives are self-sufficient and becoming economically viable units. Women have learned to manage the administration and accounts by themselves. SEWA helps them only in marketing and solving policy level issues.

Outside Ahmedabad district, SEWA's employment activities have been undertaken in Banaskantha, Kheda, Mehsana, Gandhinagar, Junagadh, Surendra Nagar and Vadodara districts of Gujarat.

With the joint action of unions and co-operatives SEWA has achieved considerable success in developing self-employment among the illiterate and poor women of Gujarat.

3.4 Shroffs foundation trust (SFT)

Shroffs Foundation Trust (SFT) is a service organization located at Kalali Village, 10 kms away from Baroda city, in the state of Gujarat in India. It was established in 1980 and is registered under the Bombay Public Trust Act 1950. The mission of the Trust is to assist the village population in improving their productivity, efficiency and creativity through effective management of available resources. This the Trust attempts to achieve by acting as a link between industry, academic institutes, voluntary and other agencies and the village community.

The Trust endeavours to develop and enable the rural people by helping them to utilise their own resources, not in patronising, donating or giving charity. From the viewpoint of the Trust, development includes mental, physical and economic aspects as well as conservation, increased productivity and enrichment of resources - human, land, water, livestock, energy and environment. Approximately 6,000 families from 19 villages benefit from the activities of the Trust.

The activities of the Trust are actively supported by the Excel Group of Industries Limited, especially Transpek Industries Limited which is located in Kalali Village. They consider it a social responsibility to support community development activities. Many other organisations and well wishers support the Trust and give donations for their activities.

Structure

The structure of the organisation consists of the Board of Trustees, a Managing Trustee, Working Committees, Project Coordinators, Assistant Project Coordinators, Social Workers, Field Workers, Community Workers and Labourers.

The Trust Board consists of professionals and experts in the field of medicine, agro-science, management and other related areas and provides guidance, advice and support to the Trust. The Trust Board is consulted in taking major decisions, otherwise the day to day administration is done by the Managing Trustee with the support of the Working Committee and the Project Coordinators.

The Working Committee consists of the Managing Trustee, Project Co-ordinators, experts from respective fields, representatives of beneficiaries and sometimes one or two Board members.

Activities

'We believe in the complete development of human beings' says the Managing Trustee, Ms. Shruti Shroff. Men are helped in farming, women in self-employment, and children in education. Health care is provided to all. The initial activities of the Trust were centred around the children, women and youth of Kalali and surrounding villages. Over a period of time, the Trust activities got strengthened with the participation and contribution of the surrounding villages. The villagers donated three acres of land to the Trust. The Trust built a small hut as an office on the land and started functioning from there with five employees.

Now the Trust has a sixteen-bed hospital, separate office for each project, a small canteen and a strength of 100 employees.

The activities of the Trust can be broadly divided into the following areas:

a. Health Services including Arogya Kendra 11, mobile dispensary, community health, rehabilitation of malnourished children, family planning, prevention and cure of T.B. and leprosy, malaria prevention programme and combating epidemics.

11 Health Centre

b. Agricultural Services. These include raising crop yields, diversifying and marketing crops, animal health care, input guidance-seeds, nutrients and pesticides, soil upgradation, compost, enricher, fodder and water management

c. Other Services like woman and child welfare, Mahila Gruh Udyog 12, low cost housing project, energy management, sanitation and water purification

12 Women's Cottage Industry

d. Special Services such as help in emergencies like floods, free medical treatment of eligible families, and a baseline survey of about 6000 families with continuous updating of data.

Health Services

A sixteen-bed fully fledged hospital 'Arogya Kendra' has been functioning since January 1990 at Kalali. Medical and nursing services are provided round the clock for the benefit of the people in and around Kalali and Atladra villages. The major activities include regular OPD services/operation theatre, indoor medical and nursing care, pathology laboratory, treatment for T.B., leprosy, malaria, diagnostic camps, family planning operations, direction and treatment for malnourished children, medical termination of pregnancy and ambulance services. The community health project provides extension services for health care to 15 villages near Kalali and Ekalbara. The main services are immunisation, detection and treatment of malnourished children, supplementary nutrition to malnourished children, and health education.

Agro Services

The agro department provides services to all farmers in fourteen villages. The major activities consist of intensive field supervision and guidance, fodder demonstration, farmers' education external visits to the Agricultural University and other agencies, soil enricher demonstration, soil and water testing laboratories, procurement of agro inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides etc.), silage field demonstrations, nursery development, and interaction with institutions, government agencies and individual experts. The project has a veterinary and animal husbandry section where the problems regarding cattle are taken care of. Cattle care workshops are arranged for the people. Artificial insemination for the cattle, vaccination for animals, and mobile veterinary services are some of the other activities.

Water Management

Successful construction of an earthern dam with the capacity of 340,000 cubic metres at Kalali and the benefits derived out of it inspired the Trust to extend these activities to other villages also. The water resources development project studied the water resources problem in sixteen villages to introduce feasible and cost effective schemes to improve ground water quality and to support irrigation. All the basic data were already collected by the department and at present they are implementing effective schemes for the above mentioned purposes.

Energy Management

This department is dealing with projects on smokeless chula 13 and big-gas plants. This project is undertaken along with the government. The project was assigned to the Trust by the government to work as an agency in the villages to promote smokeless chula and big-gas plants. The Technical Backup Support Unit (TBSU) provides necessary training to the Trust employees. The charge for making one smokeless chula is Rs.10 which the beneficiary has to pay. It includes follow up and repairing charges.

13 An indigenous stove made of clay

Low Cost Sanitary Latrine

This project is in collaboration with the Environment Sanitation Institute, Ahmedabad to help the village population develop better sanitation facilities. 600 families have benefited from this project with 30% contribution from the beneficiaries.

Woman and Child Welfare

This is a significant activity at the Trust wherein a lot of emphasis is given for women to understand and appreciate their role in the family and society. The key activities involve informal education for women, skill development programmes and parents' education for child care. Women are trained in fuse repairing, stove repairing etc., so that they don't have to depend on others when there is a need for maintenance. Consumer awareness is given to them alongside health and hygiene awareness. They are encouraged to participate in cultural activities and workshops arranged by the Trust. Recipe competitions, garba 14 competitions, hair style competitions etc., are conducted for them. Sports competitions and debates are conducted for the children. Seminars and workshops are arranged for them. Opportunities are provided to learn traffic rules, water works mechanisms, first aid etc. Trained professionals are invited to teach the children. Attempts are made to train them in a creative and constructive way.

14 A traditional folk dance of Gujarat State

Technical Training Centre

The Trust has a Technical Training Centre, where fifty-six students from the villages are trained in scooter repairing, motor winding, wiring and masonry. This enables them to find employment in workshops in the village and outside. Some of them have started their own repairing shops.

The Mahila Gruh Udyog

Another significant activity of the Trust is the Mahila Gruh Udyog. This provides women with supplementary income for their families and enhances their role in improving the quality of family life. Women are trained in making papads 15. The functioning of this project is in such a way that it develops many other abilities of the women. The project has seven centres in seven villages. Each centre has a group of three women in charge who are trained by the Trust. Dough for preparing papads is made centrally in the Trust and sent to the centres. This is supervised by the production supervisor. The women in charge in the centre distribute it to the members in their centres. All the production information and packing instructions are given to them. The quality testing is done in each centre by the women and the papads are grouped into A grade and B grade qualities. Poor quality papads are rejected. The women write the accounts of the day and send them along with the packed papads to the Trust. Marketing is done by the Trust. Profit is distributed to the members. The average production per day is 400 kg. The women earn a minimum of about Rs. 500 per month. 250 women are members at present. The women use the money to support the family and educate their children. Due to this project, the women have learned to use their time constructively. They have a sense of belonging to the project as they are coordinating it themselves. The papads they make are available in the open market under the brand name 'Crispy Papad' and it has established markets in Kohlapur, Vadodara, Bombay etc.

15 A flat round wafer made of lentil flour which is commonly eaten with meals

The purpose of SFT is progress through service and goodwill. The Trust claims to interact with the people it serves, speak to them in their own language and gain their acceptance. All further services and activities are determined by a common perception of requirements and priorities. Much of the responsibility of undertaking, promoting and carrying on the activities has been taken by individuals and groups in the local community. As a result the activities have become increasingly self-supporting, and the major input of the Trust is advice, encouragement, expertise, equipment and liaison with other agencies which can help, whether government, research institutes, voluntary organisations, industry, funding agencies or individuals. This would eventually lead to a self reliant, on-going and continually evolving range of activities and initiatives, with the Trust playing the role of guide, advisor and friend. This is the ultimate and basic goal of the Shroffs Foundation Trust.

Training and Education

The Trust which initially started with five people has a strength of a hundred employees today. Each department has a project coordinator who is in charge of a particular project. The Project Co-ordinators report to the Managing Trustee. In consultation with the working committee, the PCs decide the activities of their project. Project planning, development, coordinating the project directing and controlling finance for the project, implementing the project and training the project staff are the responsibilities of the project co-ordinators. As and when required they visit the field along with the project staff.

With the help and direction of the project co-ordinators, the project staff implement the project. They go to the villages, talk to the villagers and develop a rapport with them. They try to understand the needs of the villagers and the project activities are decided according to the needs of the beneficiaries. The next step is developing awareness and educating the beneficiaries. The methods they use to communicate and educate the rural people demand originality and creativity from the project staff. The average education of the villagers is 12th standard. But many are illiterate. So the community workers and social workers carefully plan their educational and awareness programmes to suit the rural population. They travel to villages and use songs and folk dances to attract the attention of the people. When the villagers gather, the project staff talk to them about the projects and secure their cooperation to attend classes at which they are taught basic skills.

The process of educating the rural population requires many competences. Other than skills regarding all the aspects of the project, communication skills are also important to talk to different groups like women, children, farmers and aged people and to deal with different aspects like their attitudes towards life, ignorance about health, and above all to convince them about changing their traditional beliefs in farming, family planning, etc.

Conclusion

The Shroff Foundation Trust has adopted 20 villages. Initially the villagers expected some charity and financial help. But SFT believed in educating and training the villagers so that they can attain self-reliance. SFT took an integrated development approach for each group of villagers like children, women, youth, and farmers. Each area emphasised development through education and training. Awareness regarding modern techniques of agriculture, medical facilities, changing perspectives of society towards dowry and other social issues, information to children regarding traffic rules, water works, health and hygiene and giving an exposure to each of these areas to help the people understand their benefits, are some of the unique activities undertaken by SFT. Women are helped to develop entrepreneurial skills by managing the production centres, keeping accounts, controlling quality, and also maintaining records. The beneficiaries consider SFT as a centre where they can obtain information and support in experimenting and exploring their related areas of development. People now realise the. importance of working together and also of developing oneself to become self-reliant rather than waiting for charity. According to SFT officials this is the right development method for a community in India.

4. Lessons learnt from the case studies

The case studies of the four NGOs engaged in non-formal education and training represent approaches which are different but at the same time have a number of similarities which seem to represent the strategy followed by NGOs. BSC adopted a basic strategy of education for conscientization on the assumption that social awareness needs to be combined with the imparting of the basic skills of economic activity. SEWA was less concerned with matters of ideology and opted for a pragmatic approach of promoting the economic independence of women by giving them skills and other support services. Utthan Mahiti used the method of providing technical help and know-how related to the problems of the local community. The SFT's approach is characteristic of the approach followed by agencies supported and promoted by philanthropic business houses in India - that of welfare dispensation and service-oriented activity.

The approaches of the four NGOs, however, have many characteristics in common, which are perhaps distinctive of NGO strategies.

1. All the four NGOs targeted their efforts at the marginalized, socio-economically deprived sections of the community. These are communities with a long history of being politically or socially oppressed.

2. The education and training activities of the NGOs are all strongly linked with - and in the case of BSC and Mahiti, only incidental to - programmes for socio-economic development. The emphasis of the NGOs appears to be on capacity building rather than on employment generation or job skill development per se. Implicity or explicity, the approach of NGOs is based on the assumption best expressed by Heredero in the BSC case: 'Economic and technological development do not constitute real development. Real development takes place when there is personal growth and increased awareness which contribute to the empowerment of people.' From the viewpoint of these NGOs, the promotion of self-employment has necessarily to be provided and accompanied by a process of conscientization. Self-employment itself is seen as more than just a mode of income generation or enhancement; it is the expression of a developing capacity for socioeconomic transformation.

3. The emphasis of all the four NGOs is already on community-based economic activity. Even in the case of SEWA which was involved in many subsystem-level employment skill building programmes. more importance seems to be given to activities like the Mahila Gruh Udyog and the other cooperative forms of activity. Thus, social mobilization and concerns about social justice and equity seem to have greater importance for the NGOs than economic efficiency or productivity.

4. All the four NGOs follow a long-term approach to self-employment, stressing the importance of sustainable development through people's participation and responsibility sharing in the process of development. Leaving the onus of learning and development with the beneficiaries themselves is an important value underlying their strategies.

5. The activities of the NGOs in all four cases emphasised informal education and training relevant to the specific socio-economic contexts of the client or beneficiary groups. Even if limited and too inadequate in scope to be able to promote significant economic activity, the education and training used inputs appropriate and comprehensible to the beneficiaries. The success of all the four NGOs studied may be attributed to a large extent to their being contextually relevant to the clienteles.

6. All the four NGOs preferred to develop activities which would supplement rather than substitute for the existing employment or income generating activities of the clienteles. While their activities may have brought about significant socio-psychological change among the target groups, at least in the short term they do not seem to have brought about climatic improvements in economic wealth or in income generating activity. Thus, they all served to improve the subsistence employment of the communities but did not promote employment that would bring in substantial economic gains for either the individuals or the communities. Even BSC, which in its early stages widely made use of achievement motivation training, did not seem to have generated much entrepreneurial activity. The major reason for this is that all the four NGOs attempted to build people's competence in traditional or traditional-related economic activities - agriculture and forestry in the case of BSC and Mahiti, and cottage or home-industry in the case of SEWA and SFT. None of the four seemed inclined to develop competences for non-traditional, modern industrial occupations. This may be because none of the four (except to a small extent the SFT) had either the inclination or the technical, financial and institutional resources necessary to train people for non-traditional occupations. Besides, their target groups were all those who did not have adequate access even to basic education, which may be a prerequisite for training for the industrial entrepreneurship type of occupations.

Implications and Conclusion

NGOs clearly have an important role to play in non-formal education and training for self-employment among marginal and underprivileged groups. They have the motivation and the ability to provide basic literacy and skills to those groups which the formal education and training systems are unable to reach. Thus, in complex, highly stratified societies like those in India, NGOs perform the crucial function of mobilizing people at the lowest rungs of the social ladder to improve their socio-economic condition by imparting basic literacy and skills outside the formal education systems. By using a community-based approach to development, the NGOs also help build a social support structure which enables a certain amount of economic risk-taking which would otherwise be impossible for the poor who have little or no capacity for risk-taking. Another role which the NGOs perform is that by their direct involvement with the local community, they are able to understand and deal with social and cultural problems (like the caste system) which are major socio-psychological obstacles to economic development.

However, as a rule, NGOs in a country like India may not be able to contribute adequately to education and training for non-traditional, individual self employment. Such education and training, to have an impact, requires large scale investments in infrastructure and institution building. NGOs may be neither ideologically inclined toward such activity nor have the resources for it. This will remain a task which the government and formal sector institutions must continue to perform.

References

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Government of India, Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development Annual Report 1991-92, Part I

Heredero, J M (1989) Education for Development: Social Awareness, Organisation and Technological Innovation. New Delhi: Manohar Publications, pp 1,9.

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