Tell us about the social impact of your innovation. Please include both numbers and stories as evidence of this impact
Most of the conflicts at rural level occurred due to poor communication, mistrust and misunderstanding each other at village environments. Further, this would prevent developing relationships and harmony among the villagers. Hence with the implementation of this project where we address these issues through a mobile enable easy to operate and handle lending & saving service operate and managed by themselves bridging the communication gaps. The developed relationship and the mutual trust among the women of these groups would facilitate achieving productivity in their day to day livelihood development activities.
The most common situation in the rural life is shortage of cash for their just in time needs in education of the children, sudden illness among family members due to sudden drops in their daily cash flow which come through either with seasonal labour or rain fed crop yields. The implementation of the project activities that ensure just in time cash flow when need will make a significant impact in their house hold lifestyle paying the way for them to recognize the importance of the outcome of the project activities. The operational process would enhance the leaderships and team work towards a harmonized social culture while creating new opportunities for them to open windows in various types of micro level enterprise development along with market linkages assuring a justifiable price for their services and products.Around 300 women will be involved in the pilot project.
Problem: Describe the primary problem(s) that your innovation is addressing
Building the relationship and the trust among the women group members will the primary difficult task as unpaid debts and existing their own methods of lending and saving formulas operating among them had caused severe differences and mistrust. Hence the task of building up the trust in this operation will take some time and it needs to utilize few social mobilization experts to develop the team work, understanding and trust to achieve the project goals.
Further creating an efficient network of receiving and disseminating cash flow among the group also would be a uphill task which need lot of dedication and commitment of the facilitators and animators in the preliminary stage of the project. The lack of leadership and team work of these women groups also to be addressed as another primary problem.
Actions: Describe the steps that you are taking to make your innovation a success. What might prevent that success?
1. Capacity building of women
2. Establsih the relevant software
3. Orgnaizing a saving & Lending groups
4. Trainig & development in technology application
We posses an excellent team of facilitators having significant experience in social mobilization and need assessments to recognize the most appropriate interventions in capacity development of these women groups while achieving their willingness, direct involvement and positive approaches to get involved in these project activities. Further the trend of usage of SMS through their mobile phones would be a significant advantage in implementing the proposed mobile base saving & lending among the house hold women.
In the initial stages the system will be a challenge for the end receivers until they get used to the system while the sharing will be prevented by ethical, cast base and religious grouping in village environments that cause mistrust among them. To overcome this in the initial stage we concentrate on inter group activities and gradually we will make the way to share between these different groups.
Results: Describe the expected results of these actions over the next three years. Please address each year separately, if possible
In a male dominant house hold environment ,empowering the women by organizing a just in cash flow to meet their needs would provide them an equal status in decision making as well as a recognition for them within the family. At the same time the just in time cash flow will ensure the security of basic needs such as education, food& health, especially for the children of the family.
The system will make the women involved as a shop window that would give them recognition as pioneers and, subsequently as peer trainers in expanding the system as well as replicating it in other villagers of the country. Further in an era where the ICT application at village level is vital for rural development this pilot project will be an eye opener for the decision makers to evaluate it and filling the need gaps to develop the operational process.
If your innovation seeks to impact public policy, how?
Being a pilot project although it start as a system among friends which is allowed under the existing law but need the recognition of the implementation system with legal endorsements as a rural development programme that enhances the development and expansion and replicating such programmes throughout the country.
