The objective of this component is to help the poor women to mobilize themselves into Self Help Groups, and gradually develop their own capacity to initiate and expand sustainable livelihoods activities.
Different approaches are being used by RGAVP for Institution Building and social mobilization in implementation of various Projects under RGAVP. New self help groups (SHGs) and their higher level institutions like Village Organizations(VOs)are being formed. RGAVP is also building on the already existing social capital in the form of women’s self help groups and their higher level federations and women led producer organizations. In all approaches rural poor are being facilitated to achieve increased access to their rights, entitlements, public services, diversified risk and better social indicators of empowerment. Different project activities are being carried out with the believe that, poor have innate capabilities and project can complement them with capacities (information, knowledge, skills, tools, finance and collectivization) to facilitate their own development. Under RGAVP,CRP (Community Resource Persons) strategy is being used for institution building and social empowerment
Under CRP strategy blocks are categorised as follows:-
We are developing Resource Blocks as ‘model blocks’ which would support other blocks in the same/other districts to implement the programme. Society for elimination Rural Poverty (SERP) of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Bihar Rural Livelihood Promotion Society (BRLPS) are providing Institution Building support to RGAVP in the 10 RRLP Blocks and 5 NRLPS blocks. SERP&BRLPS have placed Senior Professionals to anchor the Resource Block Strategy by deploying experienced Community Resource Persons /External CRPs in the Resource Blocks for initiating Social Mobilization and Institution Building process. These CRPs are also helping us to develop community based monitoring mechanisms and create a large pool of social capital in each Resource Block for scaling up the project in other blocks of the state.
RGAVP is implementing various Projects with the human resources available in Rajasthan i.e. Internal CRPs (from existing federations) to seed the social mobilization and institution building process in selected blocks. This is a home-grown model of institution building to scale in other block,the active women are identified and trained to scale up the best practices in the intensive blocks. The internal CRPs and the PRPs from the existing federations are mobilising women into SHGs and train the SHGs,they are also identifying and developing bookkeepers and active women.
There are many SHG federations, which are financially and managerially self-reliant and do not have to depend on anyone. They are in fact capable of scaling up the activities of the NRLM in their local areas, through their own leadership and Community Resource Persons (CRPs),as they have come to this stage through the efforts of their nurturing organisations. This framework harnesses and builds upon the existing mobilization by NGOs (as nurturing organisations) to get a head-start for the Rajeevika activities to saturate the blocks where their federations are functional.
