Empowering Tribal Women for Sustainable Livelihoods
- Lack of understanding about self-worth: The strongest barrier these tribal women face is their lack of understanding about their self-worth, which severely limits their ability to pursue their goals and live fulfilling lives.
- Absence of Collective Action: These women often lack a collective voice and do not work in groups, which prevents them from developing product brands and securing better returns.
- Lack of awareness and information: There is a general lack of awareness among the tribal women regarding the market potential and high demand for Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs). They are also often unaware of the government schemes designed to support them. This lack of knowledge frequently forces them to accept prices dictated by middlemen.
- Lack of training and skills: Tribal women often lack appropriate training and skills for processing and value addition of the NTFPs, which compels them to sell the products in either raw or semi-processed form at a low price.
- Inadequate Market Linkages: Poor market information, limited access, and remote locations compel them to sell raw or semi-processed products to middlemen or in local markets at low, fluctuating prices.
- Poor Infrastructure: Lack of road connectivity and storage facilities further hinders their ability to market products effectively.
- Lack of Bargaining Power: Individual collection efforts are often not on a scale that allows for strong bargaining.
Empowering tribal women is crucial for achieving inclusive growth and social justice.
The World Bank defines empowerment as “a process of enhancing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes” (World Bank, 2002). UNDP further emphasises creating an enabling environment that encourages participation in decision-making for goals like poverty eradication and sustainable development.
Therefore, empowerment aims to increase agency, enhance capabilities and skills, facilitate access to resources and services, and ensure the inclusion of marginalised groups in decision-making.
This empowerment process, developed by IBRAD, has been successfully implemented with tribal and non-tribal communities across various ecological zones in over five Indian states (Odisha, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, and Telangana), yielding similar results to varying degrees.
IBRAD’s women’s empowerment framework consists of six stages:
- Identifying Inner Potentials and Accepting the Need for Change: Recognising one's self-worth and inner potential is central to empowerment. IBRAD's facilitators conduct "ice-breaking" sessions to help women realise their inherent capabilities. This realisation, coupled with acknowledging the need for change, initiates the empowerment process. When individuals understand they can make a difference for themselves, their families, society, and the environment, they become motivated.
- Group Formation and Collective Actions: Once women recognise their potential and commit to utilising it, the next step is forming groups of like-minded women with shared goals. This provides opportunities to utilise their potential, fosters a sense of purpose and achievement, and allows them to express themselves and experience change, giving them control over their actions. These groups must organise themselves cohesively and build their institutions following a seven-step process, "SAPTAPADI" developed by IBRAD. Strict adherence to rules for regular meetings builds trust and relationships. To develop a strong identity of the group, culturally accepted rituals like starting the meeting with a prayer of their community, and placing some objects like water-filled vessels are included in the program designs. Once the groups are formed, the women are facilitated to identify and take up some simple but realistic activities that can be achieved within a short time. It can be a cultural programme, a rally for “save the environment”, or raising kitchen garden. It is important to plan some activity which would give them a sense of achievement as well as benefit them within a short time. Raising a kitchen garden or a nursery is such an activity. To realise the activities, a detailed plan of action, like what activities will be taken up, who will join, when, where and how it will be implemented, is to be designed and monitored strongly by the facilitators.
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Creating an Enabling Environment: An enabling environment is crucial for women's empowerment, ensuring mutual respect, dignity, and peace for goal realisation. Support includes reassurance, assistance, and provision of labour and materials (e.g., men helping with land preparation for a kitchen garden). This environment is fostered in three key areas:
1. Social Environment: Ensuring support from family and villagers, developing networks for broader coalitions, and promoting enhanced mobility. Changing stereotypes and mindsets is vital for removing social barriers.
2. Economic Environment: Providing financial support through access to credit and services, raw materials, and capacity building for processing and marketing products.
3. Physical Environment: Addressing ecological concerns and providing necessary physical infrastructure. - Skill Development through Trait-based Training: Group members' capabilities are enhanced through trait-based skill development for chosen activities, fostering positive attitudes and collaboration. Facilitators clearly understand group objectives to design effective training strategies and modules.
- Follow-up, Hand-holding, and Monitoring: Follow-up, hand-holding and monitoring are crucial components of the stages of women's empowerment. It helps in confidence-building as many women, especially from the marginalised tribal communities, lack self-confidence due to long-standing social barriers to expressing themselves. They need hand-holding support to take initiative and make decisions. The follow-up and hand-holding also facilitate skill reinforcement to apply the skills in real-life situations. Real-time monitoring also allows the facilitators to identify and address issues at the budding stage. Just after the training follow-up is planned. Otherwise, the training would go in vain. Follow-up in the form of hand-holding and encouragement makes the training effective and successful. A regular monitoring mechanism has been built into the project design to keep the activities on track and take timely corrective actions.
- Celebrating Success for Sustaining Motivation: Celebrating success is a strategic tool for long-term empowerment. These celebrations reinforce positive behaviour, boost confidence, make women feel valued, and encourage them to continue activities and take on new challenges. Witnessing celebrations inspires more women to participate. Shared celebrations enhance group cohesiveness and belonging. Sharing success with the wider community helps gain support. After initial successes, such as a first harvest, women are recognised for their achievements, and visible changes are showcased. This boosts their morale, inspires others, and fosters a sense of contribution to society. These celebrations also help women build networks with the outside world.
Case Studies
In Nedam, a forest-fringe village with 60% Lodha PVTG families, initially shy women were encouraged through digital ethnography to start NTFP-based income-generating activities. The Prakriti Jeevika Mahila Group, comprising five Lodha women, was formed. They began holding weekly meetings at 8.00 a.m. each Monday and maintaining resolutions, with a young, ninth-grade-educated woman, Mandakini, taking responsibility for documentation.
They initiated a collective organic nutrition garden. With land identified in consultation with men, women learned skills like land preparation, seed treatment, organic pest management (Neemastra), and vermicompost preparation. Family men helped establish the garden. Surplus vegetables were sold, and proceeds were deposited in the bank, further motivating the group.
Recognising the abundance of mango trees, the group decided to prepare mango pickle using non-destructive harvesting. While they knew how to make pickles, they lacked knowledge of quality assurance, packaging, and branding. They received digital and hybrid training from IBRAD Headquarters on hygiene, packaging in bottles, and branding their product as “Nedem mango.”
Initially, they prepared 10 kg of pickle and sold 2 kg in the local market, facing slow sales because customers weren’t interested in large quantities. Based on this learning, they changed their marketing strategy the following year, selling 7 kg of pickle in small Rs 5 and Rs 10 pouches, which proved highly demanded.
This success boosted their confidence, encouraging them to scale up operations and understand the value of processing and branding. They also gained confidence in directly dealing with consumers and traders. This process motivated them and their spouses to collect NTFPs collectively for better returns and fostered initiatives for forest conservation, including adopting non-destructive harvesting practices for sal leaves, mahua flowers, and char seeds.
Collective Marketing of NTFPs by Uthanisahi Women's Group
The Adam Heba Disham Mahila Group of Mankidia PVTGs in Uthanisahi, with 11 members, collected tamarind and mango from their village’s surrounding forest. After digital training, they processed the fruits, packaged them in small jars with their group labels. They sold tamarinds at Rs. 5 per packet and 6 kg of mango pickle at Rs. 200 per kg to local traders. Though initial returns were small, it boosted their confidence to collect and collectively market NTFPs like Sal leaves.
Previously, traders from Midnapore, West Bengal, would collect semi-processed leaf plates but had stopped, putting the group in a precarious position. With the village facilitator’s help, they connected with a local trader who agreed to collect products from the village if they were on scale. They collected and semi-processed sal leaves, preparing bundles. The trader collected these from the village, and the group earned Rs. 10,000 in the summer of 2025.
The women’s group successfully organised themselves, formed a coalition for collective action, and developed communication skills to negotiate with traders for better returns.