Grass root level approach for sustainable development
- Part 2 :: Clusters -
By Grace Laikhuram *
Clusters:
Clusters are formed by the association of the Self Help Groups. It covered 20 to 25 SHG's spread over 3 to 4 villages. Clusters are 4 to 5 years old.
Each SHG sends two representatives to their respective clusters were formed with the objective of empowering members of the SHGs
(by building capacity on group management, financial management, enterprise development, children's education, social awareness) and
to improve their social economic conditions.
Clusters play an important role in designing credit systems, monitoring groups, auditing groups annually and in implementing activities in the areas of education, enterprise development by forming different committees which play an important role in monitoring the impacts of these activities.
Clusters have more than 20 members. So, it becomes imperative to be registered as a co-operative to avail government loans. A Cluster meeting is done once a month. In every meeting, each member of a cluster saves about Rs 125 and Sampark provides a financial assistance of Rs 10 lakhs to the clusters.
Cluster structure:
Consists of a president, secretary and five working committees .It has 5 committees namely
1)Administrative committee: manage the cluster members, facilitate cluster meeting, discuss the agenda and solve group issues.
2)Income generation committee: the role of this committee is to evaluate the application for undergoing skill and enterprise training programme and then report to Sampark regarding the application. Sampark team then organizes a meeting with the applicant and then asks the applicant to do a market survey of the particular enterprise he/she wishes to undergo training for. Finally, training will be imparted to the applicant depending on the results of the market survey.
3)Micro-credit committee: the group that wants to apply for loan has to submit their loan application to this committee. Then, members of the committee will go to the concerned group and evaluate the need for the loan and also check regularly on the utilization of the loan money.
4) Education committee: This committee identifies poor children in the villages for sponsoring their education. The committee handles various activities like
- awareness programme
- education through street plays
- children camp
- visiting children
- provides education material
- contraceptives
- hygiene
- sanitation
- nutrition
- pregnancy
- child birth
- birth control
- childcare
- immunization etc
Training given BY MYRADA to clusters staff on:
Poverty analysis, concepts of SHGs, rules and regulations followed in SHGs, fund management-savings and credit bank linkages, communication, leadership , book writing.
In addition, sampark has conducted trainings to the cluster staff on different subjects that are required for building the capacities of SHGs and village level committees. The subjects include cluster concept, IGAs and micro-credit activities, education, health, government schemes and planning training for SHGs.
After receiving training from Myrada and Sampark, cluster staff conducted training programme for the SHGs, IGA, book writing and book keeping, rules and regulations, health, financial management, poverty analysis etc. After the group level, the cluster staff provided follow up training during the group meetings.
To be continued....
* Grace Laikhuram, doing Post Graduation in Mass Communication, contributes regularly to e-pao.net. The writer can be reached at grace(dot)laikhuram(at)gmail(dot)com
This was webcasted on 30th December 2008.
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