The Joy of Giving Week: XLRI Students to start training SHGs

Jamshedpur, Sept. 21 (The Telegraph): Students of XLRI will pass on their management skills to the micro-level, with volunteers of Social Initiative Group for Managerial Assistance (Sigma), a students’ society of the B-school, planning to give accounting tips to women of rural self-help groups.

With the help of Jamshedpur-based NGO, Kalamandir, XLRI has identified women self-help groups from the district to launch a pilot project on September 26, coinciding with the start of the Jamshedpur JoyFest: Joy of Giving Week (Sept 26 - Oct 2, 2010).

Around 60 members of Sigma have agreed to don the role of mentors for the four-and-a-half-hour course that would include topics such as the importance of saving, the concept of loans and interests, the nature of bank loans and links with self-help groups.

“Sigma members conduct a computer literacy programme for underprivileged children on campus. But we wanted to do something to help people in a larger way. Since self-help groups have become an important driver of rural development, we came up with this idea,” Madhukar Shukla, a senior faculty member of XLRI, told The Telegraph.

The course has been designed in consultation with XLRI faculty members, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development and people associated with self-help groups.

Self-help group members will be brought to XLRI from different villages, so that regular classes of volunteers are not hampered.

“We are launching it on a pilot basis. We’ll assess its impact and changes. For now, we will train around 30 self-help groups. As self-help groups are only likely to grow in number, we would like to continue the programme to help villagers,” said Sigma secretary Rajiv Sengupta, adding that the teaching approach would be “interactive”.