The Impact of Self Help Groups on the Psychosocial Well-Being of Female Members in Ethiopia

Abstract

Tearfund self-help groups are a variety of self-help group (SHG) aimed at poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite a number of positive evaluations of SHGs, there have been no direct studies of impact on psychosocial well-being. This paper reports the first phase of a mixed methods examination of the impact of Tearfund SHG membership on the psychosocial well-being of womens’ SHGs in Ethiopia. Five young SHGs (<2 years) acted as a comparison for five older SHGs (> 5 years) across self-evaluations and standardised scales while covarying for chronological age. These results were enriched by focus groups, semi-structured observations and structured interviews. Results showed that members of older SHGs reported statistically greater psychosocial well-being on 4/10 self-evaluated impact indices and 2/3 of the standardised scales. The younger vs older group differences are significant but small. A richer understanding of the impact is gained through the qualitative reports. Future studies will be strengthened by the addition of longitudinal data, through adjusting measures better to the culture, and through collecting baseline data from SHG initiation. This study provides extensive qualitative and quantitative evidence of the impact of Tearfund SHG membership on psychosocial well-being.