Bodh Gaya (Bihar): Bimla Devi of Bara village in Bodh Gaya block of Gaya district mobilised over 200 women to block traffic on the highway skirting their villages for two days.
"We allowed traffic to move only after the Block Development Officer (BDO) arrived on the spot and promised in writing a regular supply of oil from the local public distribution system (PDS) shop." Four years ago, Bimla said she "used to shiver" if an outsider spoke to her.
Savitri Devi's family was on the verge of starvation when her young son died.
Her 70-year-old husband was able to earn money when he found work as a daily wage labourer. She was unable to feed a family of nine on an erratic income.
Four years ago she took a Rs5,000 (Dh365) loan and opened a general store in her village of Bara.
"Now I earn Rs100 a day. I send my grandsons for tuition, have a savings account in the bank and have repaid the loan," she said.
Every thing changed for the women. They came together to form vibrant and bankable self-help groups (SHG) under the World Bank aided Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project (BRLP) called "Jeevika".
The poverty alleviation programme targets the poorest people, particularly women, in the villages.
The objective of BRLP is to usher in social and economic empowerment of rural households by developing institutions like SHGs, and their federations. These have enabled them to access and negotiate better services, credit and assets from public and private sector agencies and institutions. They have also been able to promote development of micro finance and agribusiness.
For Dukhni Devi of Shekhwara village, those days of seeing her husband go off for months to big cities in search of work are over. She decided to take to agriculture interventions that have increased the yield from her rice and wheat field fourfold.
It has also drastically cut down the expenditure on buying seeds and manure. "I now have food grain for an additional six months, so there is no need for my husband to go to the city to earn money."
