Major Achievements

APMAS began its activities on 1 July 2001 and partnered with the government programmes such as AP Rural Livelihoods Project and District Poverty Initiatives Project. In due course, the support from governments, national and international donors (CARE India, DFID, Aga Khan Foundation, Ford Foundation, Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, DGRV, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, etc) was obtained to provide capacity building and technical services for strengthening of SHGs and promotion of their livelihoods in several states across India. In due course, APMAS has been able to expand its thematic and geographical areas of work with the support of international and national donors, and partners.

Over Nineteen years, APMAS has made a successful, yet a very challenging journey, in realizing its vision for the empowerment of marginalized women and deprived communities and thereby contributing to poverty reduction initiatives. It has emerged as a trustworthy and credible resource organization at the state, national and international levels in providing services to strengthen the SHG movement and livelihoods promotion. It has also been remarkably successful in establishing partnerships and collaboration with diverse stakeholders such as community-based organizations (CBOs), NGOs, national and international donors, State Governments, Planning Commission, NABARD, Banks, and other institutions.

APMAS promoted a Section 25 Company, Sadhikaratha Foundation in 2012 to meet the ever increasing needs of its clientele. This heralds a new initiative of APMAS to undertake those projects and activities within the vision of APMAS and enabling the expansion of its horizon to meet the requirements arising out of the current development paradigm. The major achievements are:

• Directly trained around 3,50,000 professional & para-professionals on various aspects of institution building and livelihoods promotion across India; developed effective context specific training modules, materials and ToT manuals
• Organized national and state level flagship trainings and training of trainers programs to strengthen the SHG movement in the country
• Conducted seven Certificate courses on Community based Micro Finance in collaboration with Coady International Institute, Canada and Sadhikaratha Foundation
• Developed a massive pool of resource persons as bookkeepers, auditors, rators, facilitators and trainers with sufficient skills to cater to the capacity building needs across the country
• Promoted and strengthened decentralized capacity building institutions in the livelihoods sector at village, mandal and district levels
• Established own office cum resource centre to provide continuous training to SHPIs and FPOs

• Established partnerships with State Governments of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana and West Bengal to support SHGs and SHG federations in both rural and urban areas to evolve into strong, sustainable and self-reliant organizations for the underprivileged
• Provided support in 45 towns in Bihar for promoting 9,000 SHGs and 500 SHG federations at slum and town level, perhaps the largest SHG promotion by the NGO in urban areas of India
• Developed Kamareddy Cluster Paryavekhana Samakhya (KCPS) in Telangana as a community Resource Centre to train and place CRPs and PRPs for scaling up self-regulatory system in Bihar, West Bengal and UP
• Established Green Innovation Centre in Chittoor and Ananthapur districts to mobilize and organize small landholders to take up value chain interventions for enhancing agricultural productivity and profitability
• Implemented six mega watershed projects of IWMP in Adilabad, Chittoor and Ananthapur districts

• Supported the establishment and evolution of Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) as an autonomous sensitive support system for the SHG movement in Andhra Pradesh which later became a model and National Resource Organization for the entire country under NRLM
• Played a significant role in the conceptualization, design and operationalization of Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas (MEPMA) in AP
• Supported the emergence of State Level Resource Organizations for the sector (like CmF in Rajasthan) based on the experience and learning of APMAS
• Consultancy services to different stakeholders (studies, research, training, tools, IEC materials, ratings, evaluation, designing products etc.)
• Technical support to National and International level SHPIs in designing and offering financial products for SHG members through SHG federations promoted by them
• Supported SHPIs in developing / adopting required manuals, booklets, tool kits developed by APMAS and materials are now available in several Indian languages
• Conducted more than 500 ratings of SHG federations, Cooperatives in India
• Community based water and sanitation program in urban slums of Andhra Pradesh & Telangana and enabled the SHG communities to effectively implement and manage the safe drinking water (RO Plants), sanitation, waste disposal, hygiene, etc.
• Piloted a Community Based Water Quality Monitoring in 100 slums in GHMC in collaboration with Hyderabad Metro Water Supply & Sewerage Board
• Publishing ‘Mahila Sadhikaratha’ a Telugu monthly magazine, regularly since 2002
• Playing a lead role in organizing consultation meetings with NGOs on Smart Village/SMART Ward and Swacch Bharat Gramin initiatives of the government of Andhra Pradesh

• Conducted 68 research studies focusing on various aspects of SHG institutions across India
• Produced 69 thematic publications including 3 books on SHGs and their federations
• Advocacy for policy influencing based on a number of studies conducted and the field experience
• Initiated a strong campaign for promoting savings and regulatory systems among SHGs to ensure that SHGs and SHG federations emerge as self-reliant and sustainable organizations
• Promoted and up-scaled the concept of Swayam Niyantrana Udhyamam (Sector Own Control) in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and other states
• Conducted more than a dozen national level and equal number of state level conferences for influencing policies in favour of SHG institutions and their livelihoods

• SNU modules on ‘The significance of Savings, The significance of Loans, SHG Bookkeeping, Reconstruction of Accounts in SHGs, Guidelines and Checklist for SHG External Audit, Annual Planning for SHGs, Federation Bookkeeping, Federation Internal Audit, Federation External Audit, Election Process in SHGs and Federations, Annual planning for Federations, The Best Performance Awards, Understanding Financial Statements, Surplus Management in SHGs and Federations, Fixation and Calculation of Interest in SHGs, Management Information System in SHG and Federation, Model Annual Planning of SHG and Federation, Financial Management in Federations’ etc
• BCC materials on nutrition and health of pregnant & lactating women and adolescent girls
• Manual on Tomato cultivation – Package of Practices
• Manual on Vegetable Nursery Management
• FPO self-learning modules on Institutional Design, Membership, Governance, Management and Legal Compliances
• Posters and pamphlets on integrated farming practices, soil health, millets promotion, zero budget natural farming (ZBNF), farmer field schools, value addition etc