Project evaluation framework for MYRADA

Abstract

Rural women in India have been traditionally involved in low income generating activities. Sometimes these activities are agriculture related and are dependent on the seasonality of agriculture in the respective regions. Consequently, these women may be out of work during most of the year. Sometimes, the women are involved in menial activities that generate very low income that is not sufficient for sustaining the family with very little or no avenues for financing opportunities and for constant income generating activities, it becomes very difficult to achieve empowerment of these women. There are a few NGOs working for the empowerment of rural women. MYRADA is one such NGO working on empowering rural women in Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu by helping them in employing in non-traditional activities like masonry, tailoring, driving, photography, tube light assembly, shoe assembling etc. In the past MYRADA had tied up with some organizations and took up projects to provide employment to rural Women. A few of these projects have been successful while the others could not be sustained. The objective of this Project work is to study MYRADA and its activities. We look at a few other opportunities that MYRADA can look at, apart from the work currently being done on MEADO\V Based on these opportunities and an understanding of the underlying issues, we arrive at a broad framework that can be used by them to evaluate future projects. Using this framework, each prospective project can be analyzed to asses the 'fit' between the opportunity and what women Self help Groups (SHGs) associated with MYRADA can offer.