No. of WLFs trained 14799

trees, gurgling stream and green meadows were all different from what she had been so looking forward to when she was flying off with her friends. Her life had taken a wonderful turn. The whale watched her from a distance and swam off after ensuring the little bird had taken well to her new environment and was flying around chirping. Aren’t we also like the little bird? Flying over the ocean of life, sometimes in our journey we get caught in a storm or a hurricane and encounter devastating problems. At times when our wings give away and we lose the will to carry on, a helping hand or a small twig may give us a new lease of life. In the pages that follow we bring stories of women who, with their sheer grit and perseverance braved the storm of poverty and emerged stronger with a new life. The little bird in the story could be Bindiya Amber from Pakshirajapura, or Bhavani from Melkote, Asha from Tagachagere village, Kalavathi of Vibhuthipura, Ashwini of Karimane, Mangalagowri of Vanvarike, Lalithamma Badiger of Hanumasagar, Bibi Fathima of Hungund or Devi Bai of Rajenahalli, or Nagamma of Tulijapuraidar or Noorjahan of Navoor, Ratnamma of Shibaje, or Suvarna Mahendra of Kadachira, or Rathnavva of Hulageri, or any of the thousands of women from villages in the 30 districts of Karnataka. These women are champions who have transformed not only their lives but also of many others by their hard work and entrepreneurship. They are also responsible for bringing about social, cultural, economic and environmental transformation of their villages. The whale in the story is Sanjeevini/Karnataka Rural Livelihood Promotion Society, the Karnataka Chapter of National Rural Livelihood Mission. Sanjeevini has created a silent revolution bringing in social, economic and cultural transformation in the lives of lakhs of rural women in Karnataka. Sanjeevini’s mission works towards reducing poverty by providing gainful wage and self employment opportunities through community institutions resulting in sustainable improvement in their livelihoods and to enhance their standard of living. Sanjeevini rests on the belief that: (i) The poor have a strong desire to come out of poverty, and they have innate capabilities. (ii) Social mobilization and building strong institutions of the poor is critical for unleashing the innate capabilities of the poor. (iii) An external dedicated and sensitive support structure is required to induce the social mobilization, institution building and empowerment process and (iv) Facilitating knowledge dissemination, skill building, access to credit, access to marketing, and access to other livelihoods services underpins this upward mobility. Sanjeevini ensures a multi-dimensional approach to poverty reduction, especially among the poorest of the poor, and provides sustained support. Sanjeevini mobilises women from the poorest, the excluded and marginalised groups and communities into small self help groups to achieve identity, solidarity, capability/capacity to access rights, entitlements and programmes, improved well-being (life and livelihoods) and freedom (choice) in order to progress out of their poverty. Till date, we have formed 1,61,362 self help groups (SHG), 20,596 Ward Level Federations (WLF) and 4,088 Grama Panchayat Level Federations (GPLF) and dispersed Rs.36,774.86 lakh Community Investment Funds (CIF) for providing financial support for livelihood activities of Sanjeevini women. There are more than 30,000 micro-entrepreneurs dabbling in different livelihood sectors in the Sanjeevini family. Livelihood activities in Sanjeevini are not about income generation alone but are also a means to enable overall women empowerment. The income is only to supplement her role, and what is most critical is Sanjeevini’s task of identity creation, be it within the family or in society or in public institutions such as government, banks etc. The recognition of women as potential resources such as Community Resource Person (CRPs) in state lead programmes is a complete shift from the supremacy of elites. It also addresses the phenomenon of ‘disempowerment’ to bring in social development. Be it society, market or even by state, disempowerment is a consequence of insecurity. Sanjeevini works towards removing insecurity. For example, the Bagalkote District Sanjeevini unit provided livelihood and other interventions to over 2000 children of Devadasis. Uttara Kannada Sanjeevini unit’s intervention with erstwhile sex workers, and the Ramanagara, Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, Bengaluru Urban and Mysuru Sanjeevini units brought about social change through livelihood initiatives among primitive tribal women.

Women’s Empowerment through Rural Livelihoods = Identity + Income – Insecurity

It begins with ‘Self’

Unlike most government poverty alleviation programmes, in which the community mobilisation process towards development issues is more a forced initiative by the government mechanism, community participation in Sanjeevini is voluntary and self-motivated. Communities own their development process. Sanjeevini aims to mainstream mobilisation and inclusion of the poorest, excluded and marginalised rural households into their institutions on a saturation basis as early as possible and universalise social, financial and livelihoods/ economic inclusion interventions including access rights, entitlements and schemes/programmes to them on priority. These Social Inclusion and Social Development(SISD) processes, help the families from the poorest, excluded and marginalized groups and communities to achieve identity, solidarity, capability/capacity to access rights, entitlements and programmes, improved well-being (life and livelihoods) and freedom (choice) in order to progress out of their poverty. Another unique feature of this programme is that it gives special attention to disabled persons, and a disabled person of any gender can join the SHG and get all their entitlements. Through Social Inclusion initiatives, NRLM aims to reach vulnerable sections of the community such as Schedule Caste (SC), Schedule Tribe (ST), Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), minority groups, people living in extremist affected areas, hill terrains, trafficked women, people engaged in unhygienic occupations, people from poor economic backgrounds, people with disability, women headed families, elderly persons, families with persons suffering from chronic sickness etc. and bring them in the fold of SHGs and further into higher forms of institutions of the poor to ensure their access to services like – savings, credit, livelihoods support, accessing schemes and entitlements meant for them, including use of NRLM resources for creating sustainable social environments for the poor. Social development interventions aim at addressing poverty gaps by focusing on Maternal, Child Health and Nutrition; Reproductive Health; Child Immunization; and other issues like Sanitation and Health Care Financing.

Our Successes

During 2019-20, Sanjeevini implemented several livelihood pilots in convergence with various Government Schemes / Programmes / Missions, community organizations and civil society. The Chief Executive officers of some districts have piloted and taken ownership of some innovative livelihood programmes such as Mission 55 in Uttara