July 12, 2011

Opinions Invited..!

TISA has around 19 SHG initiatives across the country. But the bitter fact is that only a few of these are able to meet regularly. Why do you think this happens? What are the challenges faced by the SHG Co-ordinators to keep going with SHGs and making the meetings happen regularly? What could be the factors that lead to SHGs being dormant? What can be done to improve this? What should the co-ordinators do? What should the members do?

Write in your opinion on the above issue and send it to me on harishusgaonker@gmail.com with your Name and Location. If you can send a photo then nothing like it!

You may also leave a comment here (Again with your name and location).

Your opinions will be featured into a article on SHGs and related challenges on Samvad for the August issue. Please send your opinion by 20th of this month.

- Samvad Team


J P Sunda said...

Dear Harish,

I will speak from my own personal experience. When I started Pune SHG around Jan 2009, I was lacking in social skills (which was an indirect result of my stuttering) and also I may have been in a mild depression!

Now when someone joins a SHG, he/she has some expectations which frankly I completely ignored and was most of the time bragging about ME and MY story!

During my 6 month sabbatical when I worked with Dr Sachin in Dehradun, I realized that facilitating a SHG is science and it comes from experience and also from making mistakes. Now to speed up the process, its better if I learn it formally from someone (which i did indirectly in Dehradun).

On another note, members too are facing the same struggles and challenges. So there has to be one person who knows the basics and then he can also learn a lot from internet

Hopefully as more and more people participate in our workshops, they will get a small glimpse of what an SHG is about! and hopefully they will pass on the knowledge.


Dhruva Kathuria said...

I attended my shg workshop in chandigarh about 9 months ago.As a comparatively new member at that time and knowing little about TISA I will share what was going on in my head:- First of all a first timer is always uncomfortable sitting with other pws as he has spent his whole life running awat from it so care must be taken to make the members as comfortable as possible and explaining in detail the importance of shg because in the first few meetings discomfort does exist,also I think the meetings should be more formal taking place at a proper venue like a school or something and not in a random park because that makes the members think that the shg is not serious and is just a way to pass time,members will be more than happy to pay for the venue expenses and other expenditure because when one pays for something it automatically instills a feeling that I am not just chatting at the meet but am doing something useful for me,so I think a monthly fees is not a bad idea which can be used for the infrastructure of the shg meets and carrying out the functions smoothly,also the I believe half of the meets should invove practice with outside world in which we actually face the problem,a guy in the chandigarh workshop stopped coming because we just talked among ourselves never interacting with outsiders.Also every member should be assigned some duty for the next meet so that he also feels responsible for the shg.In shg meets its mostly the facilitator talking and others answering him,I think each member should facilitate a portion of the meet and the facilitator can provide tips to everyone .So to summarize-fixed indoor venue,monthly fees,interaction with outside world,assigning duty to every member.

Dhruva Kathuria

sachin said...

@ JP and Dhruva
Thanks once again for having an opinion and sharing it! Very useful feedback for all of us.