Understanding Livelihoods: complexity, choices and policies in Southern India:
A 15 minute video aimed to spark discussion of livelihoods issues

Introduction

Agriculture around Thiruchuli

Changes to labour relations

8. Electrification and gender

Narrator 16: Another effective initiative was the electrification of the villages. An immediate benefit was that electric pumps could painlessly draw water in a fraction of the time previously taken by teams of oxen. Although diesel motors are now more popular, electrification lightened the workload of many villagers, giving them time for new pursuits. However, with both transport and electrification, the benefits weren’t all evenly spread.

The care of draught animals was traditionally a man’s job. Electrification and the availability of tractors for ploughing decreased the need for this, as part of the general decrease in draught oxen.

Interviewee 12 RENGASAMY

Electrification freed the men-folk from many of the tasks they were traditionally engaged in and it left them with leisure time to become involved with politics and improve their agricultural methods. However, because of the women’s traditional role their workload was not alleviated and in many cases increased. It used to be men that looked after the animals, so now the have more time on their hands. Women have not gained in the same way.

Electrification did not particularly alleviate any of the tasks that are traditionally women’s. There was a similar effect with increased transport links, although more recently women have begun to benefit more as social change has freed them to travel and work for cash wages.

Narrator 17: So policy can help the community as a whole, without benefiting everyone equally. Women failed to gain much from electrification because of their traditional role and the constraints it imposes on their activities. However tradition isn’t always a constraint, it can be an opportunity too. In Tamilnadu, a new initiative is building on women’s customary practice of saving for emergencies and special occasions to create self-help groups.

We wanted to show that its not inevitable that women lose out from development initiatives, especially when their needs are taken into account at the planning stage. Also that tradition is not a bugbear - It is a feature of the social landscape and can be a force for the good if appreciated properly.

9. Women’s self-help groups

Interviewee - 13 GIRIJA

Nanayams are about women coming together for mutual help and sharing. They have an in born habit of saving and this talent is organised through the self-help groups. Through nanayams, they play a major role in the family and society having gained economic empowerment and confidence.

Nanayams are the name given to the particular form of self-help groups promoted by SPEECH.

Interviewee 14 WOMEN’S DEVELOPMENT OFFICER

Investigating research from a pilot scheme of a nanayam in Bangladesh, the Indian Government became interested in supporting women’s self-help groups. In Tamilnadu they decided to target the poorest areas in four districts to promote the nanayams, with very encouraging results. Now the Government is actively supporting self-help groups because they believe women should be encouraged to take care of the village’s financial matters. They are responsible, hard working and manage things extremely well.

The interviewee is referring to the pioneering work of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which set the international standard for savings and loans for the poor.

Narrator 18: SPEECH has been involved in setting up women’s groups for the last 15 years, but as the organisation has evolved, so has their approach. NGOs like SPEECH don’t have the resources to make a substantial difference on their own, so they are moving into partnership with local government in order to help improve lives and bring about sustainable development in the area. They are able to bring their own expertise to new initiatives, based on an appreciation of local people and their world.

Their understanding of local people and close relationship with them has helped them add value to the self-help group idea. All around Thiruchuli and their other working areas, they are helping to form women’s self-help groups, or nanayam, through their innovative security card scheme.

In its early days, SPEECH worked on a Fréreian model of development: Education and consciousness raising. As they established themselves around Thiruchuli, they began to work on particular issues a-lá sectoral development.

They were also one of the early adopters of PRA and have a strong participatory slant to their development practice.

Interviewee 15 RENGASAMY

The idea for the security card came from the practises of local people who kept an invoice book of their credit transactions with local shopkeepers and also from the credit cards used by more affluent people.

Rengasamy originally proposed the idea for the security card, and it was subsequently developed by one of his students, working at SPEECH.

Interviewee 16 GIRIJA

The security card is an initiative offered by SPEECH that allows local people to purchase food, agricultural supplies and medicines from shopkeepers who will then settle the account with SPEECH. The nanayams then co-ordinate the repaying of the debt to SPEECH in three instalments and are charged a small administrative fee which is smaller than the interest that the shopkeepers charge for their credit. If repayments are prompt larger amounts can be borrowed from the scheme.

Here is a security book with the date of the purchase, how much was spent, the particular shopkeeper, when the nanayams meet to repay and the outstanding figure.

Shop-keepers provide credit to rural people already, but not necessarily on good terms. The flat fee charged by SPEECH for administration is much better value for the women, who stand guarantor for one another.

Narrator 19: Once a savings and credit scheme is established, the group can undertake projects for individual and collective benefit. SPEECH has helped some nanayam groups set up milch cow and goat-rearing operations – forms of livestock care that fit with women’s traditional role. These increase livelihood opportunities and incidentally replace the lost draught oxen as a source of animal manure.

This made a nice link back to animal manure, but the problem of insufficient manure to replace chemical fertiliser is by no means solved.

10. Conclusion

Narrator 20: People-centred approaches to development work because they are flexible and put local priorities first. A commitment to reducing poverty and close relationships with local people means that you are able to seize opportunities as they come up and take advantage of them.

Improving livelihoods and working for sustainable solutions is neither simple nor easy. Sometimes a brilliant solution brings new problems or fails to address old ones. However, positive change is possible and depends on being able to appreciate the full picture. Policies and intervention can make all the difference if they are based on local rather than outside realities.