View article

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 …