Women self help group making it possible for women micro-enterprises

A self-help group (SHG) is a village-based  financial intermediary committee usually composed of 10–20 local women or men. A mixed group is generally not preferred. Most self-help groups are rural areas, though SHGs can be found in other Peri-urban communities.

Members make small regular savings contributions over a few months until there is enough capital in the group to begin lending. Funds may then be lent back to the members or to others in the village for any purpose. In NIRP groups, many SHGs are 'linked' to banks for the delivery of micro-credit.

A self-help group is  registered to enable them access other development services. It typically comprises a group of micro entrepreneurs having homogeneous social and economic backgrounds, all voluntarily coming together to save regular small sums of money, mutually agreeing to contribute to a common fund and to meet their emergency needs on the basis of mutual help. They pool their resources to become financially stable, taking loans from the money collected by that group and by making everybody in that group self-employed.

The group members use collective wisdom and peer pressure to ensure proper end-use of credit and timely repayment. This system eliminates the need for Collateral and is closely related to that of solidarity, widely used by micro finance institutions. To make the bookkeeping simple, flat interest rates are used for most loan calculations.

We continue to mobilize more community members to form groups and create their small village banks where they can get loans to start or grow their businesses.