Sakhi Sangini

III.  Objectives:

• The urban poor women who are members of self-help groups (SHGs) organize themselves as a city level federation and voice their issues and concerns.
• The deprived women from the urban slums become part of the main stream citizen’s forum, take their own space in local governance, create their collective identity as Sakhi Sangini, and act as a pressure group for policy and advocacy issues.
• The vulnerable women from these areas become economically self-reliant.
• The magnitude and frequency of alcohol consumption and violence against women in the city reduces.
• The rate of literacy amongst girls and women increases.
• Majority of women from these areas equip themselves with information and knowledge to create awareness amongst the communities.
• Women can access the resources (financial, technical, etc.) and entitlement to properties and assets.
• The strong leaders from the Sakhi Sangini federation lead the development interventions in their areas.
• Health of women and communities in general improves.
• Sakhi Sangin plays a facilitation role for setting up association of daily wage earner women (Maids going for house hold work, helpers engaged with the caterers, etc.)
• All members and their families are covered by life, health, and other social security packages.

IV. Approach:
In November 2010, the urban poor women of the self-help groups throughout the urban slum areas formed a city-level federation – Sakhi Sangini (‘sisterhood’ or ‘female friends together). KMVS supports and nurtures this federation to focus on their issues of priority in order to govern their rights as citizens.  This federation aims to become economically self-sufficient for its financial services, through interest on loans, profit from goods it produces, and charges for services it provides.
Whilst livelihood activities and self-help groups are the foundation of the women’s federation, in order to achieve economic empowerment, the federation will also address a much wider scope of basic services (water, housing, sanitation, and health), as well as domestic and social issues (alcoholism, domestic violence, child brides, and women’s representation in local governance) in order to achieve both social and political empowerment and to become leaders in their communities.
The federation will link with area wise groups, partner organizations, government departments, banks, and specialized cells of KMVS working on different issues, so that they can access specialized support for specific issues and needs.
This program is seeking financial support initially from funding agencies for strengthening of the Sakhi Sangini in terms of training, nurturing, organizing meetings and exposures, and also for the human resource cost for implementing the planned activities with the Sakhi Sangini federation.