RGCT: Working to Empower Women in India

RGCT is the charitable trust set up By Mrs. Sonia Gandhi for realizing the dreams of all-inclusion of her husband, who was also the youngest prime minister of India, the most respected Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. It has been a well-known fact that he was an intelligent human being who genuinely cared about the people of his country. Being the prime minister at such an age was the way to bring youth to the politics to cause transformation in the country for good.

One of his speeches reveal that he was well aware of the situations that the real citizens were facing and that there were great minds among politicians who really, dedicatedly wanted to solve this problem, but were not able to do so as they focussed upon making the management plans, not the systematic plans. When he finally made the plan to run things systematically at the grass root level, the transformation started to show. To carry on his ideals and realise his dreams, this trust was set up, especially for the socially excluded weaker section, the rural women.

RGCT is the most advanced, established and stable among women's empowerment organizations and it touches every aspect of lives of women living in rural areas of India. The various tasks that are taken up by NGOs for women empowerment include creating awareness among them for their rights and inspiring them for becoming a decision-maker, running classes to develop skills in them so that by using that, they can earn money. These skills include stitching, tailoring, preparing spices, preparing ready to eat food items and side items like chutney, pickle, papad etc., making handicrafts, making daily use items like matchboxes, candles, incense sticks, bamboo or jute baskets etc. Another task is to make them literate enough for them to sign their name, read local newspaper and count the expenditure and earnings.

RGCT on the other hand, works on these primary tasks just as a starting to the bigger goals to make their lives even better. The main goals RGCT works for is to improve the overall living standards of the rural women by inspiring young girls to become future leaders, improving awareness on nutrition, helping them change health and sanitation behaviours, encouraging their political participation, forming women's self-help groups, facilitating their financial security from agriculture, which was previously dominated by men even when women worked equally hard.

Most of the NGOs that work for women empowerment focus on making them self-dependent, help them earn money by doing a job they are trained for, but here, at RGCT, this is taken a step further to make it even more concrete for them. This step is financial inclusion of rural women in the mainstream economy, getting their payments in their bank accounts makes them an undivided part of the Indian economy. Along with financial inclusion, the bank accounts also make sure that they have all the right over their hard earned money and nobody can take out their money without their permission, something which has been hollowing out the economic condition of rural women from time immemorial. This advanced approach by RGCT makes it the most successful NGO working for women empowerment for realising its vision and mission.