Strategy of ARD
Self Help Groups art the key component of ARDs stategy which addresses economic, as well as social and political empowerment.

Read about Self Help Groups (SHG) here

1. Economic Empowerment:
Income Generation Activity (IGA) is one of the major strategies used by ARD through which the women themselves will become self-sustaining and able to become self-dependent. The majority of the women from the Self Help Groups are involved in various income generation activities by making loans either from the banks or through inter-loaning within the groups. The women are involved in various types of income generation activities like dairy, flour mill, floriculture and goat rearing. It is the aim of ARD in future for macro scaling up of the different IGAs.

Self Help Groups serve as an important tool for economic empowerment through the process of savings and credit linkages. In this way the women are enabled to contribute to their household economy, increasing their bargaining power within the household.

Thus, Self Help Groups have transferred real economic power into the hands of women, which has considerably reduced their dependence on men. In times of crisis they are able to deliver financial help to their husbands.

2. Social Empowerment:
Women's empowerment initiatives are the focus of ARD's working strategy. ARD strives to work with a rights based perspective to transform the lives of women, with a working focus on gender equality and justice.

* ARD believes in the philosophy that to empower a single woman is to empower the society in turn.

Social empowerment forms an integral component in the functioning of SHG. In the SHG meetings, different issues relating to domestic violence, Right To Information and child rights are discussed.
This has resulted in a substantial increase in the confidence level of the women, such that they have a higher self esteem and can interact in the community at large with greater confidence.

Self Help Groups have incorporated a code of conduct that members are encouraged to follow in their daily life e.g. production of fruits and vegetables in kitchen gardens, investment for improvement of housing and education for children, use of latrines and safe drinking water for better health, rejection of dowry in marriages etc

3. Political Empowerment:
ARD strives to create a platform where these “most vulnerable women” can move forward together through their increasing capacity and bargaining power and can thereby fight for their rights and entitlements themselves.

For the first time, the women are now coming out of their house and are interacting actively with various government and bank officials.

Economic empowerment triggers social empowerment and social empowerment triggers political empowerment.

Read about the Socio-Economic status of the area here