Ramana Health & Educational Development Society’s Women’s Empowerment Program (WEP) strengthened the capacity of 400 savings and credit groups comprising 1,000 women members in rural area of Kurnool. All of these groups started their training within months of beginning field operations. How WEP reached so many groups so quickly, the quality of the groups it trained, and the impact WEP has had on the women who are members of these groups is the subject of this evaluation. A.P.Forest Department financed for this program. Through this program we have adopted the villages and formed women groups for their development.

WEP’s goal was not to create a permanent sustainable financial institution—it doesn’t even have a loan fund. Rather, its objective was to serve what best can be described as a time-limited catalyst of group development by helping thousands of groups evolve into well managed, member-controlled savings and lending organizations, with literacy training as a fully integrated and central component. This is village banking, but without the external loan fund. The approach is similar in its spirit to early credit unions but with crucial differences:

1. WEP groups are smaller, with 21 members on average.
2. The groups operate completely below the regulatory radarscope.
3. The model is simpler and based on village banking and local savings and credit
   group traditions.
4. Literacy training is built in.
5. Leadership is from within the group and all members are women.