• Dr Pema Lama

The concept of Self Help Group has its roots in rural India. It caters to the rural poor particularly the women to improve their socio-economic conditions. The objective of this holistic programme is to accelerate women empowerment and provide self employment opportunities. In this context a study to understand the participation of rural women in Self Help Groups to become self reliant and eventually ‘empowered’ has been undertaken. The study is based on select rural segments of Darjeeling Hills of the state of West Bengal, India and covers four Gram Panchayats each from two blocks of Darjeeling district. The purpose of the study is to explore the space and scope for local, need-based, people-centric development with the ultimate purpose of empowering them and with the specific methodological vantage point being- participatory development. The fundamental principle of the study is that there is an inviolable linkage of development and participation, if development is supposed to aim for the interest and well-being of the ‘ordinary people’. Thus, the study explores Self Help Groups as a channel for empowering the rural women. In doing so it also accords importance to its challenges and problems. Findings show its greatest potential by virtue of being sourced from the initiatives of the local people themselves. It seeks to reveal that even in the stagnating rural development scenario in Darjeeling Hills, there is considerable scope for the effectiveness and efficiency of Self Help Groups in improving women’s empowerment.

Development, Participation, Rural, Empowerment

"WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN SELF HELP GROUPS – GATEWAY TO EMPOWERMENT: A STUDY OF TWO BLOCKS IN DARJEELING DISTRICT", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no.320-325, June-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1908B44.pdf

"WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN SELF HELP GROUPS – GATEWAY TO EMPOWERMENT: A STUDY OF TWO BLOCKS IN DARJEELING DISTRICT", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no. pp320-325, June-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1908B44.pdf