Empowering Tribal Women of Manipur through Microfinance and Forest Ecology: The transformational journey of Lamevi SHG
Empowering Tribal Women of Manipur through Microfinance and Forest Ecology: The transformational journey of Lamevi SHG
Authors : Marilyn Marine, Purvika Patel and Sauvik Dey
Women of rural India fought hard to bring transformation through breaking the vicious cycle of poverty by bringing economic, fi nancial, and social prosperity to their families. The policy framework ignored participative decision making, which paved the way for Self Help Groups(SHGs) as a vehicle of women upliftment. (Vanthangpui 2017). The prerequisites for successful SHGs are stable and robust leadership, group solidarity, clarity about the goals among the members, co-operation, Self Help Promoting Institutions(SHPI) support, and easy fi nancial access. (Devidas, 2019)
The SHG concept in Manipur was introduced in 1999 with an inadequate institutional response to empower women in establishing themselves socially and economically through appropriate fi nancial assistance (Devi, 2014). The state is classifi ed broadly into valley (inhabited by Meitei) and hills (inhabited by the Naga tribe in the north and the Kuki tribe in the South). The forests play a crucial role in fueling livelihoods of tribal.1 The forest products are either sold in local markets or transported to Imphal. The transportation is managed by the individual themselves in most cases. Thus, they need to arrange and pay for the transportation. Even though Imphal market’s demand is higher than the local market (village), often tribal communities of the hills sell it in local markets due to myriad challenges such as diffi cult roads, problematic transportation, poor market linkage, shortage of raw materials, weak fi nancial management, lack of stability and unity, etc.
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