Economic Activity for Empowerment

Action India has worked in five villages in the Hapur Block of the Gaziabad District of Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) to enhance educational opportunities for girls and promote income-generation for women.

The Western U.P. area, comprised predominantly of Muslim minority villages, is known for its production of beaded crafts for overseas export. We have worked with home-based workers to build leadership and management skills. We helped form a women’s collective called Agaaz (meaning “The Beginning” in Urdu) that functioned as a beadmaking production group. Collaborating with the National Institute for Fashion Technology, we were able to teach the group about production and the value of their labor and develop new designs and products. As a result, other marginalized women and girls were then able to demand higher wages. We have seen numerous women in Hapur reduce the exploitation of contractors and raise their daily wages (and those of the women around them not in the Agaaz group) as a result of this initiative.

Action India is additionally overseeing sixty self-help groups (SHGs) in the five Hapur villages, the majority with bank linkages. The Co-operative Bank has opened accounts for all of the sixty SHGs and facilitated loans of Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 50,000 for income generating activities. The collective capital raised by these women has insulated them against the corruption and exorbitant interest rates of moneylenders.

In Hapur, Action India’s work has improved school enrollment and women workers are organizing to demand higher wages. We are now seeking to expand our work to new villages.