INTRODUCTION:

social awareness is a skill that we all must work to build within ourselves. In a broad sense, it means

having an awareness and understanding of the world around us. 

This includes environments, cultures, communities, societal norms, problems, struggles, and all

other areas that make up the social atmosphere in which we live. 

But the way I am discussing social awareness is in a much more narrowed sense. I want us to look at

how social awareness also contributes to emotional intelligence.

One of the most prominent figures in the field of emotional intelligence is Daniel Goleman. He

breaks emotional intelligence down into four subsects: self-awareness, self-management, social

awareness, and relationship management. 

Regarding emotional intelligence, social awareness is best defined as our ability to accurately

understand the emotions of other people and empathize with them.

Social awareness is all about taking the focus off ourselves for a moment and beginning to think

about those around us. This can be very difficult to do for some of us, especially if we are often

wrapped up in ourselves and consumed by our thoughts. 

It requires suspension of selfishness and self-absorbed thinking to accurately identify and

understand how those around us think and feel. 

We are social creatures, and we live in a world where relationships and social interactions play a

large part in a successful life. This makes having the ability to understand the emotions of others

incredibly important. 

If we lack social awareness, then it can cause our lives to be much more difficult and full of friction.
It’s not that social awareness all of a sudden will make us a social butterfly, it simply means we will

relate to our fellow man or woman in a more positive and meaningful way. We will have a better

time understanding their struggles and what makes them joyful. 

 
SOCIAL AWARENESS OF WOMEN’S ECONOMIC
EMPOWERMENT:

A woman in charge of her economic future is a woman with power over her own life. If we

can ensure women and girls have tangible control over their futures and wellbeing— that they no

longer earn less money, have less power, or make fewer gains—we can help create a world where

women, girls, men, and boys all have a chance to thrive.

When women and girls can participate as equals in the economy, it creates something greater for

everyone.

We define women’s economic empowerment as the transformative process by which women and

girls go from having limited power, voice, and choice at home and in the economy to have the skills,

resources, and opportunities needed to access and compete equitably in markets and the agency to

control and benefit from economic gains.

Three Main key outcomes of women’s economic

empowerment:
1. Access to income and assets.
2. Control of and benefit from economic gains.
3. Power to make decisions.
4.Realization that as a group their demanding capacity and status at
home and in society can be higher order.
SODHANA EXPERIMENT ON SOCIAL AWARENESS WHICH
LEADS TO ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN, who
form self help groups (S.H.Gs)

Women group formation because of social awareness can lead to:

1. Banks lend money to the groups depending on their seniority (1st,2nd,

etc….Linkages).

 Loans to SHG are provided preferably in the form of cash credit and term loans as per the

requirement of SHG. Sanction of a cash credit/ overdraft system of lending for SHGs for a

operational tenure of 3-5 years may therefore be adopted to permit SHGs to have larger loans in

tune with increasing pooled savings .This approach will provide flexibilitythier frequent needs as well

as help them in reducing their cost borrowings ,from many lenders through S.E.R.P(Society for

elimination rural property )

SHGs get linked to banks via NGOs, for opening a savings accounts and for their credit requirements.

Banks lend to SHGs after assessing their credit worthiness on parameters such as group discipline,

regularity of meetings, savings, rotation of funds, maintenance of books of accounts, group record-

keeping, repayment of loans etc.

Self Help Groups (SHGs) is a small group having 10 -15 members from local neighbourhood who

meet regularly to save small amount say Rs.25 to Rs.100. Members can take small loan from the

group and repay it with less interest that usual money lenders. After one year , if the group is sill

saving, they become eligible for availing bank loans. SHGs are the building blocks of organization of

the rural poor. Lending loans to such groups help women to become financially self-reliant, to
provide working capital need, to buy assets for their business like sewing machines, cattle etc. And

so banks are keen on lending more to these SHG's.

2. Improvement of the financial status of the family because of bank

linkages:

This study explores the impact of changes in family financial status of satisfaction with various

aspects of household finances. Data were collected through personal interviews with few SHGS .

Information was obtained on household income, assets, liabilities, and on the satisfaction of the

money managers with seven aspects of household finances. Two-tail paired-tests were used to

compare differences in financial and satisfaction variables between the two time periods. Regression

analyses were applied to ascertain factors affecting the satisfaction of the money managers. The

financial status of households improved BY net worth. The mean net worth, with and without real

estate, increased significantly during this time period. In spite of this improvement, money managers

are less satisfied with various aspects of their household finances.

The study has focussed that the SHGs bring the poor women under the purview of the formal

financial institutions. This cross-section analysis reveals that the participation in SHGs makes a

smooth path of financial inclusion for the rural women. Duration of SHG membership influences in

increasing the volume of formal savings and borrowing of the rural women, which is a

comprehensive indicator of the intensity of financial inclusion. Therefore, in order to achieve

complete financial inclusion in the rural area, there is a need to extend the SHG programme more

intensively. We should have an environment in which poor and disadvantageous women can

get easy access to formal financial institutions which may strengthen the economic and social

security in the rural areas. Bank and cooperatives should provide some relaxation to poor

women in terms and conditions for having access to formal savings and credit for income generating

activities. There is also need to undertake some more exclusive poverty alleviation projects like
for land reform, food security, livelihood security for scheduled tribe and other disadvantageous

communities on part of the government and NGOs. These may ensure the strong financial

inclusion and may accelerate the inclusive growth.

3.Better education to the children, particularly girl children :

Through SHGS some of the families are able to give their children education especially girls .once

upon a time families with weak financial support who having one boy child and girl child they able to

educate only boy child .But after due to SHGS now they can able to educate their girl child also .

It is very important to get girl to be educated and treated to be equal in society .

When it comes to girl education, the sad truth is that they lag behind their male counterparts. Girl

child education in India needs to become a priority for everyone. People need to realize and

understand the benefits of girl education which lead to real empowerment of the society.

Education can change lives, shape futures and make a man. A man. Not a woman, because many

girls in vast numbers suffer the wrath of inequality. The Indian girl has been deprived of this valuable

gift, as they are not considered worthy of the same.

From a very early stage in their lives, girls from this part of the society have been pushed into

household chores, in the hopes that soon they will be married off and their only identity would be

that of housewives, daughters-in-law and someday mothers.

This leaves them unable to earn a real income even if they wish to do that, as the families they come

from or the people around them mostly believe that their only profession is that of a homemaker.

This mentality fuels the stereotype, which believes, that a woman’s place is in the Kitchen and not

the Office.

One of the other factors that hinder a girl’s education is the matter of ‘safety’. Parents are often

afraid to send their daughters to schools because of the rise in crimes against females. Often starting

with teasing and taunts, these crimes can take the form of ‘assaults’ before one has the time to
register it, leading parents to wish to keep their daughters ‘safe’ from the world by sealing her away.

Some parents in the society also fear the possibility of their daughters becoming ‘too independent’

and not wanting to get married early, threatening the parents’ ‘honoin the society. But what needs

to be instilled in the minds of people is the fact that girls are competing with boys in all spheres of

life.

Educating a girl, will start a phenomenal chain of reformation in the society. Females of all ages

deserve to feel empowered and education insures that they never lack confidence in their abilities.

An educated girl or a working woman will never deduct anything from the lives of those around

them, only add good tolues in the future generations and contribute economically in their

households. The numbers of out-of-school females are staggering which is what many government

policies and NGOs like Save the Children aim to work towards.

4.Better opportunity for employment :

Due to SHGS most them are setting up their own business and getting self employed . The concept

of the provision of microfinance through SHG acted as a key and very innovative idea to meet and

solve both income and employment problems. The SHG is a medium by which the poor section of

the society can get access to formal financial services at a very affordable cost and without much

procedure. It is an association or group of individuals, mostly women, with a similar background who

come together and contribute on a monthly basis towards the group corpus. Over a period, the

amount so collected is used to provide a limited amount of credit to its members. Since it is skilfully

managed and controlled by the members of the committee, all the decisions are made by consensus.

It promotes the habit of saving among the members and creates an opportunity to borrow funds

from the banks without collateral security on group liability bases. The role of SHG cannot be

ignored, and one of the factors that plays a significant role in income generation.
5.Weakening g of caste system, case studies of inter-caste marriages:

Openness to intent-carriage signals the weakening of caste boundaries.

Marriage in India is primarily based the on social stratification of a caste system. There are so into

an inter-caste marriage in l India. Data for this study were collected through in-depth interviews with

a few couples who were recruited through purposive and snowball methods. Two key themes

emerged during discussions with participants: one from the social context and the other from the

personal context .The study findings suggest that even today the caste system is largely prevalent in

rural india.

The factors that were led to the weakening of the caste hierarchy in India are as follows.

Due to the efforts of the social reformers and partly due to solo-economic changes, castes and caste

system in modern India have undergone great changes. Economic growth and large scale urbanization

has also contributed to the weakening of the caste system. Due to growth of literacy and education in

India the casteism is now slowly disappearing from the society. Occupational mobility has also made its

contribution and with the weakening of the position of the landlords in the villages, the old notions of

caste hierarchy are breaking down. The Constitution of India has prohibited any caste based

discrimination and laid the foundations of policies to reverse the injustices of the caste system.
case study:

By SODHANA Experiment ON SOCIAL AWARENESS Which Leads to ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF

WOMEN, we came to know that how Women’s life style changed before joining the SHG and after .

Now they became independent and they also being employed by starting some business and by

maintaining small scale dairy . They also became capable to educated their children especially girl

child . They also became capable to buy GOLD which is most seeking element by women’s . By using

that money they are getting better hospitalization .

There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women . There Is no

doubt that a woman’s economic empowerment is very much interconnected to health and well

being of her children . I convinced myself economic empowerment of women was going to key

especially in country like this most of the women didn’t go to school . Finally by survey we came to

understand that ,there is a lot of effectives and transformation by SHG in AKULAPETA like ,women in

that village became independent and they are able to come of their house and they are getting

awarenesss and their financial status improved and their getting employed and inter caste marriages

are happening .
 Our Matru Shakti is our pride.
Women empowerment is very crucial
to our development.