"I and my family members feel proud of my leadership to manage this cooperative" said Kamala Neupane, one of the woman leaders of Jyoti women saving and credit cooperatives working in Mangalpur VDC, Chitwan. She added "I was really scared; my heart bits were very high when I went to women development office (WDO) for first time, 12 years back. I was there to submit an application for requesting WDO support to our women group". That day I never forget in my life.
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"The training I received in the same year was the turning point for my life and I was fully involved in women development and cooperatives. Now, you can see my confidence, which is because of the regular capacity building programme provided by various agencies, including BISEP-ST," Kamala added. With all of the confidence of women from Mangalpur VDC, they have managed one of the finest and exemplary community cooperatives which have 719 shareholders at present.
At the initial day of this cooperatives, local people, especially male, were opined that "why we should invest foreign support to women development rather than in factories and mills" said Keshav Kumar Adhikari, former chairperson of Mangalpur VDC. "Now, we all realised that women can do an exemplary work with full of their honesty, dedication and commitments. You know this cooperative is the winner of best women community cooperatives award last year," former Chairperson added.
The Jyoti women saving and credit cooperatives has already invested about 3.4 million rupees on various community development works, more specifically on biogas, improved toilets and micro-scale enterprises. An emergency medical fund is also available for group members without any interest in case of emergency medical treatment. Very interestingly, this cooperative has already had well being ranking in Manglapur VDC and loans are prioritised for poor and margninalised communities based on the outcome of such ranking. Fifty seven volunteer women are mobilised within the VDCs for facilitations and raising awareness on various issues in the area.
A special programme for highly poor and marginalised households has been initiated with support from WDO and BISEP-ST. A total of thirty households are benefited directly from this initiation. These households' members are trained and provided support for bee keeping and Kurilo cultivation. "The important achievement is that these poor and dalit households internalised that they are the important part of this community and their voice is also counted for the overall community development", said Sabitri Adhikari, an office assistant, highlighting the achievement of this special programme.
"Now, you can see and realise the change in this village. This is possible because of our continuous commitment and support provided by various organisations" said Binita Thapa. "There were no such training and exposures at the initial. Training, exposures, attending workshop drastically changed our level of confidence and now we do not hesitate to discuss with anyone" she added.
With all capacity building programme, a women leadership has been developed in Mangalpur VDC that could be replicated in other places. Furthermore, these women members feel that they do have all ownership over resources, which is very much important for the sustainable development process of the country and community.
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