I had a chance to interact with the members of Choti Maa Self Help Group of Palshada village of Khariar. The village is around 5 kilometers from the town. Laxmi Behera is the leader of the group and Santosi is the secretary of the SHG. Laxmi wasn’t there while I had interaction with the group as she was away. The members of the group are involved in varied activities to make a living such as making leaf plates, tailoring, running small shops and working on paddy fields. Santosi run a Kirana store and also work on her paddy fields. The village has the basic facilities like electricity and water pumps. All the children who are in the school going age now go to school. Due to frequent power cuts it is difficult to do the household work in the night and children also find it difficult to study at home. To mitigate this problem the group had taken solar energy loan almost one month back from Milaap for buying the solar lanterns. They had very good experience with Milaap and its field partner is quite happy with the loan. The group expects that in future based on their timely repayment record they would be able to avail loans of more amounts. The group now wants to apply for house loan to do some maintenance work at their homes.
Choti Maa Self Help Group
