Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana , a glimpse

Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana

Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana(RGMVP) is the initiative of Nehru-Gandhi family which is working for poverty reduction and women's empowerment. RGMVP, therefore, fulfils a real and critical need for developmental intervention in UP. Its reach currently extends to 50 blocks spread across 12 backward districts of UP, reaching out to 2,18,771 families and transforming the lives of over two million poor. The districts where RGMVP is currently doing its work are Bahraich, Sravasti, Barabanki, Lucknow, Faizabad, Raebareli, Sultanpur, Pratapgarh, Unnao, Fatehpur, Jhansi and Lalitpur. Other proposed districts where RGMVP plans to extend its activities are Jalaun, Hamirpur, Mahoba, Banda, Chitrakut, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Deoria and Kushinagar.

RGMVP's vision of ‘Organising the poor to unleash their energy' through women's empowerment and poverty alleviation is put into action through the Mission's Core Programmes. A participatory planning process has been institutionalised, through which programme activities are implemented with plans prepared from below, involving all project field functionaries, to achieve measurable indicators of progress.

The most significant of the Core Programmes is Institution and Capacity Building. Once the institutions of the poor begin operation, all other initiatives are routed through them to reach every woman and household. The SHGs serve as central points for women to discuss and address issues closest to their hearts: education, healthcare, awareness generation, income generation, even social risk management.

The entire process of programme execution is led by the community; RGMVP facilitates and simplifies each area so that best practices can be easily internalised by the community.

Stretagy

RGMVP's implementation strategy is based on the belief that it is the poor themselves who must drive all initiatives of the project from planning, implementation to monitoring. All of the Mission's strategic initiatives/interventions use proven and successful methodologies of community development:

• Internal animation through social mobilisation and community champions such as community resource persons, animators, etc,

• External facilitation in the form of RGMVP's support in setting up institutions of the poor and bank linkages

• Community institutions in which the poor participate fully and which are owned by them, so that they can shed poverty and experience a better quality of life.

Key cornerstones of the project's implementation strategy are:

• Poverty Reduction Strategy

• SHG Institutional Model

• CRP Strategy

• Total Financial Inclusion

• Livelihood Focus

• Saturation Approach

• Convergence

• Project Management, Experimentation and Learning