Impact of SHGs on Psychosocial Wellbeing in Ethiopia
In the first phase of a mixed methods examination, Fagan et al. (2020) reported on the impact of Tearfund SHG membership on the psychosocial well-being of Ethiopian women. It was found that SHG members scored positively on all the established scales of wellbeing: health, spiritual, finance, family, psychological, family social, social, family spiritual and education. There were small but significant differences between more established groups and younger groups: members of older SHGs reported greater psychosocial well-being on 4 out of the 10 self-assessed impact outcomes (finance, education, family and social).
The most commonly reported change was greater self-confidence and gains in self-efficacy, purposefulness and optimism. Qualitative evidence indicated that SHG membership helped women end social isolation and increased social capital, access to capital, quality of life, independence, financial literacy, promotion of health-conscious behaviors (proper hygiene and preventative health behaviors), access to education for their children and empowerment levels.
The key elements that enabled this were the SHG structure itself, the facilitators, the education, and the training that participants were receiving through their groups. The clarity of the SHG structure was comforting as it provided rules and regular meetings while building trust and self-confidence through the transparency of the process and the weekly rotation of roles. Facilitators promoted values such as trust, acceptance, and forgiveness, which helped keep the groups together.