Women, Development & Social Entrepreneurship

Guest Blogger: Kristin Teti, 2nd-Year Part-Time MSW Student, Skirball

Marginalized populations face complex individual, social and environmental barriers to obtaining freedom of negotiation in their lives. In India, the social enterprise model, often in the form of self-help groups, is being implemented to enable and assist such groups, especially women, in gaining the power and capacity to access and use available resources. Self-help groups consist of a group of women who come together around a common purpose. The goal of such groups is to provide women with sustainable financial freedom in an extremely patriarchal society with the hope that this will ultimately shift the economic, social and political culture of local communities and society as a whole.

In a country where poverty is pervasive and many cannot realize their most basic needs, social enterprise can lay the groundwork for a sustainable livelihood. Our visit to Stree Mukti Sanghatana (SMS), an organization established for the purpose of changing the secondary status of women in all aspects of life, offered an example of the power of this approach. Here in Mumbai, many poor women scavenge waste dumping grounds for anything they can sell to feed their families. Unfortunately, these women are often exploited by middlemen who take full advantage of their lack of resources and power. Parisar Vikas, an environmentally friendly program established by a self-help group under the advice of SMS, consists of groups of waste pickers who educate themselves and others on the value of waste as well as healthier picking and disposal practices. This, in turn, empowers them to negotiate with the various obstacles in their lives, including the exploitive middlemen.

At first, one may question (as I did) the value of such social work – how could such a program lead to large-scale change in the status of women in India, especially a woman in poverty? But after hearing from the President of Parisar Vikas, I cannot question the enormous impact this enterprise has on the individual, family and community levels. Without Parisar Vikas, these women are left no other choice than to employ their own children in order to eat. Therefore, obtaining the most basic education and healthcare must take a backseat. Parisar Vikas empowers women to take control over their employment and as a group they are able to establish a line of credit, which ultimately equates to some financial freedom. As a result, their children can go to school instead of pick through waste and they will grow healthier and more educated than the generation before them.

The President of Parisar Vikas spent 20 years of her life picking through waste and never dreamed her daughter would do anything different, but because she came together with women similar in situation, they now celebrate their daughters’ school graduations and see them becoming nurses and teachers. The value of such progress is immeasurable.