States » NorthPosted at: Oct 23 2026 4:23PM


One Woman, 200 lives transformed: Reena Singh’s journey of empowerment

Manoj Bhadra
Varanasi, Oct 23 (UNI) For years, Reena Singh led a life familiar to many educated rural women, with her B.Ed. Degree lying unused, as household responsibilities left her with little opportunity to put her education to work. Her life took a turn in 2016, when a Self-Help Group (SHG) was formed in her village in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency.
Recognising her educational background and leadership abilities, the women elected her as the group’s president. What began as a modest responsibility would go on to transform not only her own life but also the lives of thousands of women around her. From SHG President to Village Organisation (VO) leader, Cluster Level Federation (CLF) President and eventually Centre In-Charge, Reena’s journey reflects what continuous learning, determination and the right institutional support can achieve. Backed by SHGs, CLFs, the State Rural Livelihoods Mission (SRLM) and IMAGO Global Grassroots, she has helped hundreds of women across 164 villages earn livelihoods, build confidence and create better futures for their families.
At 41, Reena began her journey as an SHG President by taking charge of the group’s bookkeeping and accounts. Her dedication and the trust she earned through this responsibility soon led to her becoming the president of her Village Organisation. In 2017, following the formation of a Cluster Level Federation, she was elected its president, a position she held for five years. During this period, she worked closely with women across villages to strengthen SHGs and expand livelihood opportunities.
Under her leadership, the CLF supported tailoring initiatives, solar lamp projects, financial inclusion drives and various livelihood programmes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she mobilised women to produce masks, helping them sustain their incomes at a time when livelihood opportunities had sharply declined.
She also identified and trained community-level cadres, including Internal Community Resource Persons (ICRPs) and Community Resource Persons (CRPs), and helped implement activities at the Community Managed Training Centre. Through these initiatives, she helped more than 6,000 SHG women access new opportunities and improve their livelihoods.
Her work also earned recognition beyond her district. She travelled to Andhra Pradesh to study successful SHG institutions and brought back valuable lessons to strengthen community-based initiatives in her own region.

Just as Reena’s leadership journey was gaining momentum, her family faced a major setback when her husband met with a serious accident.
Reena Singh, Centre In-Charge, Kashi Prerna Agro Processing Centre, lives with her family of six in Arajiline Block C, Varanasi district, Uttar Pradesh.
The accident brought both emotional distress and financial hardship. With the family’s responsibilities falling entirely on her shoulders, she had to manage household expenses, care for her family and ensure that her children continued their education.
It was one of the most challenging phases of her life. Yet, Reena refused to step back from her work with Self-Help Groups. She continued to support the women who depended on her while holding her family together through the crisis.
The experience strengthened her determination and gave her a deeper understanding of the importance of self-reliance. In late 2023, IMAGO proposed setting up an Agro Processing Centre under her CLF. Reena applied for the role of Centre In-Charge and got it. On 12 December 2023, she officially started.

It was a different kind of work entirely — machine operations, production planning, inventory, quality control, accounting, enterprise management — none of it close to what she'd done before. She went through intensive training at Kashi Prerna APC to get up to speed on the technical and managerial side of running an agro-processing business.

Before the centre opened, Reena and her team travelled extensively, village to village, building awareness about the opportunity. They met with SHGs, VOs, and CLFs to identify women who could become Unnati Didis and Sahayak Didis, laying the groundwork through sheer repetition — meeting after meeting — until the centre had a strong, locally-owned foundation before it ever processed a single batch.

Operations started in March 2024, and Kashi Prerna APC has grown into a genuinely large enterprise. Today:
164 villages are connected to the enterprise, 162 Unnati Didis are associated with sales and production activities, 61 Sahayak Didis earn through sorting, drying, grading, and packaging work, three women are employed full-time at the centre and the enterprise has generated more than Rs 80 lakh in total sales. Besides nearly Rs 35 lakh worth of products have been sold directly through Unnati Didis.
Reena also manages exposure visits across 20 blocks, regularly hosting executives from different organisations as well as Didis from other centres who come to see how Kashi Prerna runs — making her, in many ways, the centre's public face as much as its operational head.
Her presence reaches well beyond the centre itself. Reena Didi has represented Kashi Prerna at various outreach events, attended a training programme at IIFM Bhopal, and participated in — and won — the Atmanirbhar Nari Shakti 2025 Micro Equity Investment Showcase. One Unnati Didi from her network, Sindhu Singh, was even facilitated by the Deputy Chief Minister on Women's Day as a Lakhpati Didi, a recognition that reflects the strength of the network Reena helped build.

For Reena, the centre gave her more than income — it helped rebuild her family's finances after her husband's accident and let her keep her children in school without compromise.
It also gave her a new identity. She's no longer just a community leader; she's someone who runs a business, manages teams, and creates jobs for other women — proof, to herself as much as anyone, that rural women can run enterprises when given real trust and support.

Praveena Nand, Joint Mission Director, UPSRLM, said, “Rina Didi’s journey reflects the resilience and entrepreneurial spirit of rural women and how women’s collectives promoted by the Uttar Pradesh State Rural Livelihoods Mission (UPSRLM) have created opportunities for sustainable livelihoods. Building on her experience, women across three other districts have taken up similar roles through the Prerna Unnati agro-processing enterprise model, strengthening their incomes and economic independence. UPSRLM is now expanding the initiative to 40 additional districts, creating livelihood opportunities for many more women across Uttar Pradesh”.

On the other hand, Saachi Bhalla, Deputy Director, Gender Equality, Gates Foundation, says, "Women’s economic empowerment is an important focus of the Gates Foundation’s work, recognising the role it plays in strengthening families, communities, and rural economies. Through our support to UPSRLM, we are working to strengthen SHGs and their federations as platforms that connect women to agricultural value chains, financial services, and enterprise opportunities. When women move from being members to leaders of enterprises, household incomes rise, more women find employment, and rural economies become more resilient."
UNI MBD RSA
Tags: #One Woman# 200 lives transformed: Reena Singh’s journey of empowerment
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