Women in Control of Their Lives

What did the India trip say that was relevant to people interested in improving human flourishing in Scotland, England and Wales?

How does what we saw in India compare with what we see in Scotland?

More reflections on the study tour..

At the end of the study trip, Adele, Ashley, Fiona and Karen were joined by Eddie to reflect on the implications of the study tour for the SRG movement back in the U.K.

The visit makes us mindful of our planet.

Three funders reflect on the study tour...

Next to one of Mumbai’s many refuse tips, we are joined in a room by thirty or so litter pickers, women who daily each collect and sell between 40 and 50 kilo of recyclable garbage.

Everyone appears to be on the move all of the time, so getting from here to there can be complicated. Lateness is not unexpected.

The group members go from door to door to ask for dry -bottles, plastic, cardboard- and wet -food- waste. The Self-Help Group members offer garlic for plastic.

When Joyti began 65 per cent of women were illiterate. The tide has turned. Today 65 per cent can read and write.

One makeshift sports ground has been taken over by a large market, a temporary exhibition centre sheltering about 400 Self-Help Groups selling their products, food and spice, jewellery and other art, kitchenware, and clothing.

The watches we saw today were assembled in a factory called MEADOW, a private company with a difference.

This movement is relational.

Self-Help Affinity Groups meet every week. They save. They penalise one another for shortcomings. The watchword is precision.

Aloysius Fernandez stands without notes and talks about his work.

Karen meets the founder of Self-Help Affinity Groups..

There are now tens of millions of self-help affinity, Self-Help or Self-Reliant groups around the world. What bets did the inventor Aloysius Fernandez make?

Listen to Adele as she talks about the beginning of the study tour...

Eleven women sit cross legged on the floor of a MYRADA training centre.

Raja is our teacher. He uses a long stick to point at the screen. He doesn’t need it to poke us into attention. We are locked on to his every word.

India is comprised of 28 states. MYRADA works in three, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

In February 2020, 11 people from the U.K. set off to India to study what we call Self-Reliant Groups, an idea born in India. The purpose of the 2020 visit was to learn about scale.

The first prototype of Tiny Box developed by the Design Group existing SRG members had five elements.

Eleven women from five Self-reliant groups came together to form a design group. They thought out of the box. They came to the conclusion that if we want 1,000 or more SRGs each year, then tech was going to be part of the structure.

What about designing a box and sending to people who live ‘out of geography’?