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AmritaSREE Self Help Groups

Amrita Self Reliance Education & Employment, self help groups owned by MAM

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SELF RELIANCE EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

In the aftermath of the 2004 Asian Tsunami, India’s coastal communities found that the aquatic creatures —upon which they relied so heavily for sustenance—had been entirely disrupted. As with so many of their needs, hopes and sorrows, they brought this crisis to Amma. It was then that Amma, who recognized an urgent need for an alternate livelihood for every family in the tsunami-affected areas, launched the Ashram’s first community-based self-help programmes. It was Amma’s firm resolve that at least one member in each family engage in a profession that was not reliant upon increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. To that end, Mata Amritanandamayi Math (MAM) facilitated training in the following vocations:

  • Tailoring: MAM established nine tailoring schools and distributed 2,000 sewing machines—one to every to every program participant.
  • Nursing: 450 women were provided free training in nursing assistance along with a stipend to study at AIMS (Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences—MAM’s super-specialty charitable hospital).
  • Driving: 500 youths received free driving lessons and received driver’s licenses to facilitate employ-ment as professional bus, truck and taxi drivers.
  • Education: Seven eligible women received full scholarships to attend Amrita University Mysore’s School of Education and earned Master’s degrees in Education.
  • Handicrafts: 1,500 women trained in making coir (coconut fiber) and coir-based products and over 150 women trained in handloom weaving.
  • Electronic Repair: 200 youths trained in niche trades including mobile phone and TV/VCR repair; plumbing; fashion design and handmade bag production.

PROACTIVE SOLUTIONS TO COMBAT FARMER SUICIDE

In recent years, suicide has spread like an epidemic amongst farmers in In-dia suffering from financial debt, rising costs of cultivation, and crop failure. Overwhelmed by their inability to support their families, over 100,000 of In-dia’s farmers have taken their own lives over the last 10 years. Often, entire families commit suicide together. In 2006 in the Vidarbha region of Maharash-tra, there were 1,044 reported suicides—one every eight hours. After Amma held discussions on the issue with Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, MAM launched a multi-pronged aid project to help farmers and their families in distress. One part of this initiative is a massive extension of the Amrita Sree self-help programme, to ultimately reach 300,000 women from families affected by the crisis across the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Featured News

Haritamritam, organic farming project inaugurated

10,000 people to cultivate organic vegetables in 1,000 acres 22 Feb 2013, Amritapuri, Kollam Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy inaugurated Haritamritam, a new humanitarian initiative of the Mata Amritanandamayi Math today in Amritapuri Ashram in the presence of Amma. Haritamritam is an initiative to promote organic farming in the state. The Math is becoming a […]

AmritaSREE Suraksha Scholarships and Insurance Claims

Inauguration of the distribution of Scholarships to the children of the policy holders of AmritaSREE Suraksha Insurance Scheme was done by Sri. K.C.Venugopal ,Honble Minister of states for Power in a function conducted at Anjali Auditorium ,Alapuzha on 11-6-2011. 2500 students studying between class IX and XII received the Scholarships. Smt.P.K.Jayalakshmi, Hon’ble Minister for Scheduled […]

AmritaSREE Suraksha- Insurance project

AmritaSREE Suraksha is a group venture between AmritaSREE of MAM and the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). Union minister Gurudas Kamat inaugurated the project on 27-9-10 during the 57th birth day celebrations of AMMA by handing over  the cheque for the 1st insalment of premium on behalf of MAM to LIC Div. Manager Doraisamy […]

Testimonials - SHG Members

Amritakripa : ”Abounding Grace”

I still remember the day with a shudder. At night, in vivid dreams, I see the faces of my loved ones smiling at me. I long to see them when I awake, standing in front of me smiling; yet I know this can never be. They are forever lost to me. We heard the word […]

Theertham Chapathi Manufacturing Unit

“I live at Pilapuzha, Haripad and am the member of Vaishnava Swasraya Sangham, Haripad, part of the Haripad cluster. We have started a chapatti-making unit called Theertham with money loaned from the cluster. You can see Theertham chapattis in many shops in the vicinity. We have been repaying the loan without any lapse and have […]

Shrimp-Peeling Shed

“We belong to Lotus AmritaSREE SHG, comprised of 10 members. We live in the seaside village of Nirkunnam and are part of the Nirkunnam cluster. With help from the cluster, we took a loan of five lakhs and started a shrimp-peeling shed, for shrimp was available locally. The major purchasers come to us with the […]

Health Insurance & Education

“I am president of a cluster consisting of 150 SHGs and more than 2,000 members and their families spread over a large area of the Panchayat of Kumarapuram at Karuvatta. The health insurance of our members, the educational needs of the children of our members and their loans are all taken care of by the […]

SHG Gallery

Amritakripa : ”Abounding Grace”

I still remember the day with a shudder. At night, in vivid dreams, I see the faces of my loved ones smiling at me. I long to see them when I awake, standing in front of me smiling; yet I know this can never be. They are forever lost to me. We heard the word […]

Theertham Chapathi Manufacturing Unit

“I live at Pilapuzha, Haripad and am the member of Vaishnava Swasraya Sangham, Haripad, part of the Haripad cluster. We have started a chapatti-making unit called Theertham with money loaned from the cluster. You can see Theertham chapattis in many shops in the vicinity. We have been repaying the loan without any lapse and have […]

Shrimp-Peeling Shed

“We belong to Lotus AmritaSREE SHG, comprised of 10 members. We live in the seaside village of Nirkunnam and are part of the Nirkunnam cluster. With help from the cluster, we took a loan of five lakhs and started a shrimp-peeling shed, for shrimp was available locally. The major purchasers come to us with the […]

Health Insurance & Education

“I am president of a cluster consisting of 150 SHGs and more than 2,000 members and their families spread over a large area of the Panchayat of Kumarapuram at Karuvatta. The health insurance of our members, the educational needs of the children of our members and their loans are all taken care of by the […]

I have taken care of the children and the loans

When Mini and Kalesh went around forming self-help groups, Mini’s husband, PV Joykutty, went with them. Because he was politically active, he was known and respected, so he attracted people. Mini first started one SHG, Darshana, which became one of 28 SHGs in the Thalvady Cluster, formed in 2013. Mini became the coordinator. But later […]

It has to be all or nothing

Every group has a memory of its greatest challenge. “There is a girl named Sunita in the Prarthana AmritaSREE SHG,” Karuna recalls. Her husband is a loading worker, and they have two children. After much difficulty, they finally built a home for themselves. They had taken a loan from the bank to finance the house. […]

Self Help Groups

Amrita Self Reliance Education and Employment (SREE) SHGs help unem-ployed and economically vulnerable women become self-reliant through the development of their technical and vocational skills. The objective: every SHG participant will be adequately prepared to engage in an income-generating activity or start their own business individually or with members from within their SHG. Since the inaugural announcement less than one year ago, 3,000 Amrita SHGs have already formed, surpassing the original target of 2,000 groups within the first year. The…

Awareness and Training

Health awareness campaigns are conducted throughout the villages. Awareness classes on Health, Sanitation and Menstrual hygiene are conducted, and Saukhyam cloth pads distributed. The people of the village, the children in particular, are taught the importance of properly washing their hands. Awareness on family planning encourages women to plan their families, as a survey showed […]

Adult Literacy Classes

Adult literacy classes were conducted for four months for SHG members in the tribal areas of Kerala, Orissa and Uttarakhand. It is being taken to many other villages across India. With the use of tablets and other teaching aids, the women mastered the alphabet and learnt numbers, addition and subtraction. They were taught to write and […]

Promoting Kitchen Gardens

The practice of maintaining kitchen gardens is not new to Indian villages, however, it has been dying out over the past 20 years or so. Such gardens have huge potential to combat various diseases. A kitchen garden can help decrease malnutrition or under-nutrition, especially in children, pregnant women and lactating mothers. It is a demanding […]

Constructing Toilets

AmritaSREE has a growing presence across the nation, with the SHG women in many villages being taught plumbing and being hired to construct their own toilets under supervision. It is the women of the SHGs who construct toilets for themselves as well as for the rest of the village, earning a livelihood for themselves and […]

I still remember the day with a shudder. At night, in vivid dreams, I see the faces of my loved ones smiling at me. I long to see them when I awake, standing in front of me smiling; yet I know this can never be. They are forever lost to me. We heard the word […]

Amritakripa : ”Abounding Grace”

“I live at Pilapuzha, Haripad and am the member of Vaishnava Swasraya Sangham, Haripad, part of the Haripad cluster. We have started a chapatti-making unit called Theertham with money loaned from the cluster. You can see Theertham chapattis in many shops in the vicinity. We have been repaying the loan without any lapse and have […]

Theertham Chapathi Manufacturing Unit

“We belong to Lotus AmritaSREE SHG, comprised of 10 members. We live in the seaside village of Nirkunnam and are part of the Nirkunnam cluster. With help from the cluster, we took a loan of five lakhs and started a shrimp-peeling shed, for shrimp was available locally. The major purchasers come to us with the […]

Shrimp-Peeling Shed

AmritaSREE Blog

Real Stories and Facts from AmritaSREE SHG Members
29
Mar 20130 Comments

Haritamritam, organic farming project inaugurated

22
Jul 20110 Comments

AmritaSREE Suraksha Scholarships and Insurance Claims

9
Oct 20100 Comments

AmritaSREE Suraksha- Insurance project

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