Study on Economic and Technological Empowerment of Rural Women Through'Digital Literacy and Digital Livelihood Enhancement Programme'in Tamil Nadu

Krithika. S et al., Krithika. S et al.,
2019 International Journal of Agricultural Science and Research  
ICT has been emerging as a powerful mode in not just transfer of technology but used in enhancing the livelihood of rural women through its various innovative approaches. The research was undertaken to study the economic and technological empowerment of rural women through various ICT tools in two districts, Madurai and Virudhunagar, in Tamil Nadu. The area was purposefully selected as several non-governmental organizations are conducting exclusive ICT projects for rural women. The paper
more » ... s one such project being implemented by the Association for Sarva Seva Farms to impart digital literacy among rural women through its innovative programme in collaboration with Tata and Google. The goal of the project is to enhance digital literacy and digital livelihood of rural women, particularly with the use of mobile applications, voice message and the applications of internet and thereby empower them. A total of 120 respondents were selected from both the districts using simple random sampling method. The effect of various ICT tools and their interventions on the empowerment of rural women was measured pre and post training. The percentage change was calculated and assigned ranks. Z test (two-tailed) was performed to find the significant difference between the mean empowerment. The calculated value obtained for economic empowerment (15.51) and technological empowerment (20.83) confirmed statistically that there is a positive significant difference in mean empowerment. The paper intends to show how ICT, especially mobile technology, benefits rural women and concludes with the recommendations to empower them technologically.
doi:10.24247/ijasrjun20197 fatcat:b7rmtmcb7vbyhkk2wupdjpiozq