Influence of Self-help Group Strategies on Women Empowerment Projects: a Case of Caritas Self-help Group Land Buying Project in Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nairobi, Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

Self-help groups help a great deal in empowering members involved so as to improve their livelihood. Self-help groups help in poverty alleviation, empowering participants socially, economically and politically. Lately, issues related to women self-help groups have gained grounds and Kenya has not been left behind on the issue since the government and other agencies have been on the frontline encouraging its citizens, more so women, to be part and parcel of self-help groups which are the vehicles that lead to development. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of self-help groups strategies on women empowerment projects focusing on caritas self-help group land buying project in the roman catholic archdiocese of Nairobi, in Nairobi county, Kenya. The objectives of the study were to determine influence of resources on women empowerment projects; to establish the extent to which capacity building influence women empowerment projects and to assess the extent to which social capital influence women empowerment projects. The study targeted a population of 100 registered members of caritas self-help group in the roman catholic archdiocese of Nairobi, in Nairobi county, Kenya, while the sample size was 50 respondents who were selected using simple random sampling. Questionnaire was employed to collect data from the respondents. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze data collected and the findings presented in the tabular form. The findings revealed that resources influenced women empowerment projects with a positive strong correlation of (1=0.616), capacity building with a positive strong correlation of (r=0.606) while social capital with a positive strong correlation of (r=0.69). The study therefore concluded that all the three variables that is resources, capacity building and social capital strongly and positively influence women empowerment projects. The study therefore recommends that; NGOs and CBOs to empower the community primarily with education so they can be able to overcome challenges hindering women empowerment projects development. Equally, the women should take advantage of capacity building opportunities that are already available in the media, internet, trade fairs and public gatherings to enrich their abilities to run and manage their own projects hence empowerment and finally, policy makers should come up with more funding strategies for women projects to favour women empowerment projects access credit easily.