Concept
Poverty is not the result of economic deprivation only. The reason and causes of poverty are multi-faceted including social and cultural situations, educational status, level of participation in the political and development activities. Above all, the poor has to make own decision and have a vision and mission to come out of it.WATCH has been supporting rural women with income generation but it was not bringing necessary changes in their lives. Even though they had their own resources they were not thinking about managing and utilizing them. They did not see that they can be utilized and managed. So this process focuses on utilizing their own resources
Process
The first thing is to identify poorest villages of the area with help from key informants by social/resource mapping Next is to identify poorest people of the village through well-being ranking with the local informants. Based on number of people to be worked with such number of poor can be identified. Thus, the main process requires identifying the poorest.
Once the poorest are identified, the facilitator initiates dialogue at the family level. The first step is to make assessment of the present situations, causes of poverty and miseries, resource situation, mentality or attitude about life and livelihood, etc. Transect walk with the family can help to understand and analyze situation. Then, next step is to let the people evaluate themselves on their current situation and how those people feel about it. This is based on 7 stages of questions and conversations that are held with the people in question to determine;
- What things are they satisfied with and not satisfied with?
- With the things they are satisfied with how do they want to continue or improve?
- With the things they are not satisfied with what they think could be done or changed to improve their situation?
- If these things happen what would they be or become?
- Based on this what kind of plan they want to make for improvement of themselves? (Prioritize activities)
- What kind of resources they have to manage or support the plan?
- What kind of resources they need, and where and how will they get them?
Case Study
- Shree Devi Women Group, DevichaurName: Bina ThingAddress: Devichaur, Lalitpur, Godavari Municipality, Ward no.7
Bina Thing, one of the member of Shree Devi women group, Lalitpur is giving continuation in her hotel business which she had started before one and half years with the investment of Rs.100000 with the support of WATCH.Both husband and wife are supporting each other in hotel works. Annually they earns around 14 lakhs. After reducing the wages and investment they make profit of around 7 to 8 lakhs. They prepare the food items like ,noodle, dumplings, jerry, meat, tea etc and also make lunch in order. They have been upbringing their livelihood, bought motorcycle, paid all the debt.
Further Plans
She has planned to rear boiler chicken including hotel business. Coop for it is made already. After completing other works,she has planned to keep chicken.