Self-Help Group of Rural Assam and Its Role in Women Empowerment

Abstract

Women empowerment is a universal issue. Women empowerment refers to the creation of an environment for women where they can make decisions of their own for their personal benefits as well as for the society. It refers to increasing and improving the social, economic, political and legal strength of the women, to ensure equal right to women and to make them confident enough to claim their rights. The overall development of the nation remains as a paradox until and unless the women got empowered. The under privileged rural women are still far from empowerment. Unemployment, illiteracy and low social recognition made them so. Presently the self-help groups that mushrooming in different corners of rural Assam have been creating opportunities for women to be empowered. Here in this study an attempt has been made to study whether the rural women got scope to get empowered by getting engagement in self-help groups. 40 women from 04 self-help groups, 13 literate and 27 illiterate women were taken as sample for the study. To collect first hand data self structured questionnaire and self structured interview schedule were prepared by the investigators. Percentage was used to analyze data.