Social change through empowering rural women*****

The way our economy is going on, a good number of people are permanently remaining outside the formal or informal production system though there is a moderate economic growth in our country. Side by side with the government's initiative for development of the country, many non- government organisations (NGOs) have also been working in different fields. According to the government statistics, there are 46,000 NGOs active in our country. Still we are failing to directly address the rural and urban poverty. Huge amount of money (15 per cent of our annual budget) is allocated for the Social Safety Net Programme (SSNP). This ultimately does a little for the poor. So, now the time has come to think about the developmental programmes differently so that these can address poverty directly. The majority of the world's poorest people live in rural areas. Now economic growth has been central to raising incomes and reducing absolute poverty in both urban and rural areas. Reduction of both absolute and relative poverty, however, requires the benefits of economic growth to extend further to the rural poor. But, income generation needs to take place in the context of economic growth, which generates significant reduction in the number of people in poverty. There is little ground to oppose that economic dependence makes the women more vulnerable in our society. Economic empowerment of women contributes broadly in two ways -- it increases the total output of an economy and at the same time, it creates a positive change to the society. Once there were some social barriers to empowering women by engaging them in economic activities. But now the situation has changed and the poor households want to have some more money to maintain the family and if the woman members of the family can earn something, the male members do not think it a disregard to the family. Rather now the challenge lies in how to create income generation for the rural less educated poor women. The income generation strategy in rural areas has three components: increasing agricultural sector productivity, stimulating rural non-farm employment, and sustainable management of natural resources. Unfortunately all these three sectors are at stake now. Day by day our agricultural production is being dependent on machineries cutting the scope for labour employment. So, focusing in the non-farm employment has become a necessity. Now 70 per cent of the world's poor and 70 per cent of agricultural labour in developing countries are women. But how this scenario is being changed was observed when I visited a remote area of Netrokona a few days back. It is surprising to know about the info ladies there. Some village girls with their own efforts are having a significant impact on their families and the society. It was amazing to know that even a girl having 12 years of schooling is earning Tk.10,000 per month in that rural area. Their service to the society is incomparable and thus the thing they do needs to be assessed and recognised properly and it deserves to be replicated. In a village where women dared not walk alone on the road and could not go outside home without permission, here a girl riding a bicycle, and carrying a laptop goes door to door or to the farmer working in the field only for giving them a service of information in exchange of a very reasonable amount of money. These girls having limited education are making bridge between the rural people and the world outside with the laptop and modem in their hands. One of them, Nazma Akhter, aged only 17, does her job as an Info lady in that area. Besides, she teaches 57 students in a batch with a very reasonable payment. Nazma always looks potential and confident. Many women are following Nazma's path taking her an idol for them. Economic power can give an option to people to become a chooser. At the same time, one needs to have the ability to choose the right thing at a right time. These girls are the invisible actors of change of that society indeed. They are working for health, education, agriculture and so forth which are very crucial in the rural areas. These are really innovations and these girls are the bright examples how these innovations can make a change in a society. There are different types of rural poor. The most vulnerable groups include women, children, the aged, small landholders, and the landless. Rural people tend to suffer from poor health, and illiteracy. They earn less than city dwellers. These Info ladies are simultaneously working in all these sectors. But the problem is that these women have limited access to land, credit and technology. So this should be solved first. If we can just give them these accesses, these rural poor women can change the society from many aspects. Nazmas have proved that there are lots of potentialities in them; and if they are given proper support, and necessary fund for initiating this sort of activities, they can contribute to the country. They are on a wait to have some support from the government or other organizations that will provide them some credit on easy term. A commercial bank has come up with some credit support to these Info ladies. I am afraid the profit maximising tendency of this bank may spoil the whole system and these women become demotivated. It would be a great help to them if the government takes the responsibilities to provide credit to them at a lower interest rate. This could indeed be a good way to get some people out of poverty. (The writer is a development researcher and can be reached at E mail: mithunmds07@gmail.com)