AmritaSREE is a community-based fraternity centred around self-reliance, education and employment. It aims to help women become independent. Members are given vocational training and helped to develop an entrepreneurial spirit. Empowerment through loans is also facilitated to individual members to promote community growth. Founded on strong spiritual values, the AmritaSREE SHGs come to be collectives of self-empowered and financially independent women. As Mr. Ranganathan, Director of AmritaSREE, says, “Empowerment of women in India itself is the change.”

We wish to see our villagers confident and leading successful, happy lives. This demands that they are given the right awareness and means to feel empowered and to overcome any marginalized social status. This is, without doubt, an enormous and long task. However, AmritaSREE is putting in efforts from all quarters to achieve this goal.

One is really empowered only when one finds a voice in the governance. It has been proved time and again that women in governing roles make a much more positive impact on society and in a much shorter period of time. Connecting with the local governing body and being elected as a member is the first and most effective step in the development of all kinds. It not only makes the women feel empowered, it also gives them a great sense of responsibility.

Today, the AmritaSREE SHG programme is active across the length and breadth of India and has brought about spectacular transformations in the lives of innumerable women and, through them, their families as well. Entire rural communities now benefit from the additional income of the women participating in AmritaSREE and the financial stability that the program makes possible.

Moreover, it is a well-researched fact that women are more likely than men to spend their income on household and family needs. Women’s additional income benefits the whole family: Children are better nourished, go to school, and receive better healthcare.