The five-year programme has created 238 self-help groups to boost literacy and leadership among 50,000 women in 500 villages of Uttar Pradesh. Also, UNDP is helping to register a dairy federation employing 12,000 women, as well as a crafts federation, providing income for 5,000 women.

For most of her life, Shiela Devi had only few options. Raised in an impoverished village in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh, she ate the leftovers of her brothers, did chores at home while they went to school, and married at 15. At 35, she was completely illiterate, had no source of income, and could not imagine any other way to raise her young daughter.

Shiela’s life was not much different from the lives of many other women in Uttar Pradesh – where over 30% of the population lives below the poverty line and less than half of the women are literate. Shiela certainly never dreamed she could go into business for herself, generate a profit, or influence decisions within her household and community.

Yet, thanks to a joint UNDP-IKEA Foundation programme, women like Shiela are not only dreaming, they are doing. Launched in 2009, the five-year programme has created 238 self-help groups to boost literacy and leadership among 50,000 women in the 500 villages of the districts of Jaunpur, Mirzapur and Sant Ravidas Nagar.

Through these networks women not only gain financial literacy, but they are educated on many other issues, including domestic violence, legal aid, their rights to information and property inheritance, and child labor. It was through such a group that Shiela attended a discussion about nutrition and the practice of feeding girls last, and determined that her daughter would not only be well fed, but also educated.

The groups have also created new awareness among women of the importance of participation in local decision-making and democratic processes such as council elections.

To affirm their collective strength, these women have signed a 12-point charter that spells out what empowerment means to them. Traveling through the 500 villages, the 10-foot tall charter serves as a powerful reminder to women that they are not alone and can change the rules.

Decades of poverty, deep-rooted caste hierarchies, and gender inequality do not change overnight. But in Uttar Pradesh, thousands of women are working together to empower themselves, creating new opportunities for social change.