2011 RAMON MAGSAYSAY AWARDS: Empowering India's poor through self-help centers

MANILA, Philippines -  Despite over a decade of high economic growth in India, many of its citizens still live a hand-to-mouth existence, particularly in the provinces where people are isolated and sometimes neglected by the government.

According to the World Bank, India is home to one-third of the world’s poor.

And even with the nation’s rise as Asia’s third largest economy, there is still a wide division between the rich and the poor.

Thirty-nine-year-old Nileema Mishra had a sense of the social inequalities around her, particularly in Bahadarpur, Maharashtra, the village where she grew up.

Although Nileema belongs to the middle class, she couldn’t help but be moved by the

poverty around her.

At 13 years old, she vowed to her friends that she would dedicate her whole life helping the poor.

Nileema kept her promise.

In 1995, after getting a degree and working for a while, Nileema went back to her village to organize the Bhagini Nivedita Gramin Vigyan Niketan (BNGVN), or Sister Nivedita Rural Science Center, named after an Anglo-Irish missionary who devoted her life to helping Indian women of all castes.

Inspired by Gandhi’s vision of a self-sufficient, prosperous village, Nileema decided that her group would not rely on what donors want for them or compete with government projects.

The people at BNGVN would identify their own problems and find the solutions themselves, she said.

“What Indians want is not charity, they don’t like begging. They like to work to improve their lives,” Mishra told The STAR in a recent interview at the Ramon Magsaysay building.

Nileema came at a time when the village women were at the brink of losing hope about how poor and hopeless their lives have become.

“But I told them not to lose hope as we will find a way,” she said.

Starting with a self-help group of only 14 women, BNGVN engaged in micro-credit and income-generating activities such as the production of food products and export-quality quilts.

Through BNGVN, women were trained in production, marketing, accounting and computer literacy.

The women also took the initiative to build a warehouse themselves so they could procure supplies in bulk at better prices, and formed an association that now has outlets for its products in four districts of the state.

Traditionally confined to the home, these village women have become productive, articulate and confident in their ability to think and decide for themselves.

But the community was beset with other problems - farmers in the village were committing suicide due to hard times.

Again, Nileema heeded their concerns and her group responded by raising their work to the level of the village itself. BNGVN helped create a village revolving fund that provided loans for farm inputs and emergency needs.

“We give them the money at the right time when they need it. We listen to them and give them a chance. When they apply for credit in banks in India, they would be rejected but we give them a chance,” she said.

Aside from this, BNGVN addressed health problems by building over 300 private and communal toilets and activated a village assembly to discuss and resolve local needs.

In a span of nine years, BNGVN has formed 1,800 self-help groups in 200 villages across Maharashtra. Its micro-credit program has distributed around $5 million, with a hundred-percent recovery rate.

But what is rewarding for Nileema is the huge transformation of the people.

“From being despondent and hopeless and forever resigned to being poor, they have become full of hope and more confident. They don’t need to beg or feel pity for themselves. If we really band together and find ways, we reach our goal,” Nileema said.

In electing Nileema Mishra to receive the 2011 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes her purpose-driven zeal to work tirelessly with villagers in Maharashtra, organizing them to successfully address their aspirations through collective action.