"Empowerment is to do things without having to ask for permission" - A study of self-help groups' role in empowering women in the slums of Mumbai

Abstract: Creating Non-governmental Self-help groups (SHGs) has been a common thing in India since the early 1990’s. Studies show that the SHGs usually empower their members in different ways. The empirical material being used in this paper consists of one group discussion and twelve semi-structured interviews with members of five different SHGs being organized by a Non governmental organization (NGO) in Mumbai’s slum. This study aims to evaluate if and in which ways female Non-Governmental SHGs in Mumbai’s slum helps the members of those groups to get more empowerment. We also wanted to achieve a better insight of how the women’s daily life looks like, how they define empowerment and what factors they consider being most important for living an independent life. All of the respondents gave descriptions about different ways that their SHG have facilitated their lives and provided them with empowerment. Some of the most essential factors for an independent life were found to be: awareness, affiliation, earning money and receiving respect.