Linked with our presentation of Prema Gopalan – India.
SSP, Swayam Shikshan Prayog, a Self Learning Network of Women, brings women to the centre of development process, enabling grassroots women’s collectives to access and manage resources so that they can gain entry in governance, says Ms. Prema Gopalan, its Founder and Director … Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) seeks to bring women and communities of the poor from the margin to the mainstream of the development processes. SSP is located in Mumbai, with resource teams in eight districts that partner with grassroots women’s groups and local self governments across the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat.
Today SSP is building capacities for peer exchanges, ICT, networking, advocacy and partnerships on savings and credit, livelihood options, local governance at grassroots, participatory monitoring of basic services, community led water and sanitation and disasters linked to development …
… Prior to 1998, SSP was initiated as an informal network on women’s economic empowerment, which included small and medium grassroots groups and organisations in rural Maharashtra. The idea was to develop collectively a menu of practical learning tools that facilitated women to understand the transition in rural economies. The network assisted cross border learning from thrift and credit groups by Samakhya in A.P through a series of study tours and workshops in 1989-90. As a result, twenty-five organizations began to form savings and credit groups in Maharashtra.
The Swayam Shikshan Prayog functioned as a self-education network within SPARC until we took on the challenge to redesign and implement a widespread community participation strategy with the Govt. of Maharashtra across 1200 villages in earthquake hit districts of Latur and Osmanabad. Registered in 1998, SSP has since then, grown to partner with over 36530(September 2004) women members in 2509 savings and credit groups supported by resource teams across eight districts in rural Maharashtra and Gujarat.
We have following programmes: (Read the rest of this long article in an interview given by its founder Prema Gopalan to Indian NGOs.com).