Jharkhand Governor felicitates 625 women graduating out of extreme poverty

Mail News Service

Ranchi, Feb 19: The/Nudge Institute announced the graduation of 625 households from 41 villages in 6 blocks of Latehar and Gumla districts of Jharkhand as part of its implementation program to graduate households out of extreme poverty in Jharkhand. This program works closely with ‘didis’ or women from poorest of the poor households, especially those belonging to particularly vulnerable tribal groups, to support them in breaking out of cyclical poverty by building durable and resilient livelihoods, ensuring food security, enabling access to government entitlements and active participation in social and financial institutions.

The graduation ceremony held at Aryabhatta Auditorium, Ranchi University was attended by Jharkhand Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan, and Ipsita Thakur, Sr. Associate Director, Corporate Citizenships, KPMG and other top officials.

At a point in his speech, the Governor noted, “It is also important to partner with the government to implement any program at scale and also to ensure last-mile delivery. Over a period of time, The Nudge Institute has successfully done this and is working in Rajasthan, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Karnataka, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Punjab. In all these states, It is closely working with the State Rural Livelihood Missions, DAY-NRLM of the Ministry of Rural Development and the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment of the Government of India. In 2024, The Nudge Institute aims to work with Two Lakh rural ultra-poor families in the country.”

Started in Jharkhand in 2018, to enable the poorest of poor families to progress out of poverty through empowering the women, this was the second cohort graduating from the program. The first cohort of 400 didis graduated in December 2022. The/Nudge Institute contextualized the ‘Graduation approach’ to Jharkhand’s context in the districts of Lohardaga, Latehar and Gumla. The Graduation approach’s efficacy was reflected in the evaluation published by Nobel Laureates Dr Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. The/Nudge had expanded its direct implementation to Rajasthan and Karnataka with support of philanthropic donors to learn and continuously improve the program design.