Seven Sisters Development Assistance

Institution Building

SeSTA envisages to build a momentum to lay the foundation of a vibrant community-based organization that is self-reliant and self-sustaining. It provides handholding support to these groups, starting their formation till they evolve as a socially and financially sustainable institutions.

Self Help Group, SHG

Self Help Group (SHG) it is a democratic institution owned and managed by women. It is an association of 10 to 20 women from similar socio-economic background and a voluntary effort to improve their economic and social wellbeing.

 

 

         Reasons to promote SHGs

Organizes poor around their own resources.
Savings and credit are a livelihood intervention in itself. It smoothens consumption and finances existing livelihoods.
Prepares members for further livelihood options.
Mobilise finance from banks for livelihoods.
Reduces vulnerabilities.

Village Organization, VO

Once the SHG groups are established, it mobilizes the SHGs to form Village Organization (VO) comprising of 10-15 SHGs from the same village or nearby villages. The objective to have VO meetings is to act as a pressure group uniting SHGs for addressing various issues related to atrocities on women, social evils, SHGs, health and governance.

                                                                                                                                    The VO acts as a

Forum for peer learning, mutual support, monitoring and evaluation.
Integrating, interfacing and cross learning forum.
An opportunity to stay in touch with the groups.
Forum for cost sharing and building solidarity

Cluster Level Federation , CLF

A Cluster Level Federation (CLF) is promoted by SeSTA in close association of the SRLMs, which is consist of all the VOs in the GP. It acts as a platform for sharing of experiences of SHGs and to extend mutual support to improve the overall performance of SHGs. The CLF will create voice and space for the poor in the village and help initiate development intervention for poverty reduction. SeSTA has formed and nurtured 50 CLFs across 5 states of NE.

 

The role of CLF are as follows

Act as a platform for sharing of experiences by SHGs.
Saturate the mobilization of left out Poor, tribal and Extremely Poor & Vulnerable Groups (EPVGs) into SHGs.
Prepares members for further livelihood options.
Saturate the mobilization of left out Poor, tribal and Extremely Poor & Vulnerable Groups (EPVGs) into SHGs.
Monthly review of SHGs and community professionals like Book keepers, CRPs, Bank Mitras etc.
Facilitate in preparation and appraisal of pro-poor inclusion plans and micro-investment plans of member SHGs.
To act as a bridge between SHG and other stakeholders.
Facilitate in ensuring the entitlements, basic amenities reach the needy in the village.

Producer Groups , PG

Producer Groups are mobilized with a focused intention to increase production of different agricultural and livestock products. SeSTA promotes PGs where women members with common interest with available resources in a suitable geography are clubbed together to participate in training and handholding support for livelihood activities. The idea is to collectivize women under one umbrella for immediate access of support, trainings, maintenance of books and accounts and to generate a maximum profit for the members

 

Producer Groups for

Common livelihood activity.
Focused training.
Immediate support.
Maintenance of Books and accounts.
Leverage funds.
Increase production.
Market access.

Farmer Producer Organisations, FPO

Farmer Producer Organisations are the upper layer in SeSTAs model of community institutions. It is a legal entity formed by primary producers, viz. farmers, milk producers, fishermen, weavers, rural artisans, craftsmen. PGs once capacitated with proper functioning are brought under one roof to form an FPO. These FPOs are ‘Owned’, ‘Governed’ and ‘Run’ by the women of the PGs.

SeSTA is Supporting 12 FPOs with over 15,000 members led by women from the communities.

                                                                                                                                         The Focus area are

Planning and working on business model.
leveraging finance.
Assisting in functional linkages.
Governance.
Inculcating effective training in accounts and management.