Promoting financial and digital literacy of women farmers supported by SREC

Solidaridad Regional Expertise Centre (SREC) is a charitable Trust established in December 2008 to create solutions for sustainable development through cooperation and partnership between Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), government, and businesses. It employs a value chain approach from producer to consumer, helping to integrate sustainable practices in agricultural farms and factories.

In Gujarat, SREC has engaged with women farmers to organize them for sustainable castor production along with their capacity building. SREC empaneled Samavit to develop a financial literacy module aimed at improving the financial knowledge, attitude, and behavior (KAB) of these women farmers. Samavit was also entrusted with training the field team of SREC, who will further train these women farmers using the financial literacy module in the Jamnagar and Dwarka districts.

The objectives of the project were:

• To promote the financial and digital literacy of women farmers in Dwarka and Jamnagar districts of Gujarat.
• To enhance knowledge, awareness, and usage of financial products and services amongst targeted women farmers and their families

Hence, to develop a comprehensive content that can be used for training women farmers through local field trainers.

Samavit followed a step-by-step methodical approach to meet the objective within the given timeline. The project roll-out was done in a phased manner highlighted below:-

• An inception meeting was conducted with the Solidaridad team to understand the scope of work and client expectations.
• Samavit prepared a structured questionnaire to conduct training needs assessment (TNA) based on OECD guidelines to measure the knowledge, attitude, and behavior (KAB) of women farmers on financial literacy to understand the training needs of women farmers.
• One-day training of the field team of Solidaridad was also conducted focusing on ‘use of KOBO Toolbox and ethics for data collection’.
• A comprehensive training module (in Hindi) was designed based on findings of TNA. Along with the training module, a training guide, flipbook, and training checklist were also prepared.
• Finally, Samavit’s team conducted a two-day training of trainers (ToT). These trainers will further train 800 women farmers engaged with SREC in the two districts, on financial and digital literacy using training module designed by Samavit.

During training delivery, trainers were also provided with a training manual, flipbook, handouts, and flyers in vernacular language prepared by Samavit. Participatory activities like- case studies, group exercises, games, and audio-visual tools were used to enhance participants’ learning experience. Subsequent feedback from participants provided valuable insights for future initiatives.