When a woman from rural Andhra Pradesh approached her community-owned cooperative bank for a ₹1 lakh loan, she had a clear purpose: she wanted to buy a tractor.
The loan changed more than her livelihood. She became the owner of the tractor, while her husband worked as the driver.
“I’m the owner of the tractor and my husband is a driver, and I have so much of respect in my village and everything,” she told Visha Ferrer.
For Ferrer, Director of Women Empowerment Programme at Rural Development Trust (RDT), this is what empowerment can look like: giving women access to finance, collective support and the opportunity to build something of their own.The tractor became a livelihood. But for the woman who owned it, it also became a source of confidence, dignity and recognition within her community.
This idea that meaningful change begins when people are given an opportunity and the confidence to use it runs through Ferrer’s work with RDT.
Ferrer has been associated with RDT since 2001 and took on responsibilities in the organisation in 2008. She began focusing particularly on women’s empowerment in 2021. RDT was founded in 1969 by her father-in-law and mother-in-law and works across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in areas including women’s empowerment, healthcare, education, disability support, housing and sports.
Strength Through Collective Action
RDT’s work with women grew around sangams, or women’s groups, creating spaces where rural women could come together, discuss their concerns and support one another.
Ferrer recalls a time when many women needed permission from their husbands or in-laws even to leave their homes. The sangams gradually created a different social environment one in which women could meet, speak openly and participate in decisions affecting their families and communities.
The groups received awareness on girls’ education, dignity, family concerns and supporting women facing difficulties. They also began saving money together.
What began with savings of ₹10 or ₹20 a month has, according to Ferrer, grown to around ₹200 to ₹500 a month for many women.
But the transformation was not simply financial.
“Today, after having sangams, socially they are empowered very well, and they’re able to speak really well in the public, even in government meetings, even in our meetings. They are the main actors of their own society.”
For Ferrer, collective action created something that individual assistance alone could not: a sense of participation and ownership.
Women Running Their Own Cooperative Banks
That sense of ownership has extended into financial institutions themselves.
One of Ferrer’s major areas of work has been women’s cooperative banking, where women are not merely customers but participants in managing institutions that serve their communities.
Community members elect a 15-member Board of Directors to lead the cooperative, appoint staff, and oversee operations.
Members save money, purchase shares and access loans through their own cooperative.
The model began with two banks in 2024. Since then, it has expanded significantly. In a recent update, Ferrer said 33 cooperative banks involve 38,600 women across 1240 villages and 54 mandals.
She also said 11 banks are making profits of nearly ₹3 crore after dividends and other expenses, and further expansion is planned.
The cooperatives have also become a pathway to entrepreneurship. Ferrer said nearly 13,000 businesses are now being run through the system, including tractor ownership, transport vehicles, turmeric businesses, photocopy centres and book centres.
The tractor-owning woman is one example.
After receiving the ₹1 lakh loan, she purchased the tractor and began operating it as a family business.
“I was asking her like, ‘How much do you pay for your driver and everything?’ She said, ‘Driver is my husband only, so we are doing it as a family business.’”
The significance, however, went beyond the business itself.
The woman was no longer simply part of a household dependent on someone else’s income. She became an owner and that ownership changed how her village regarded her.
Creating Livelihoods for Single Mothers
Ferrer’s work also focuses on women facing particularly difficult circumstances.
RDT’s Single Mothers Project has supported vulnerable mothers through housing, income-generation activities and educational support for their children. In May 2024, RDT reported that 1,004 mothers had been supported through the project.
Ferrer has described a wider group of around 2,300 single mothers, including widows and women whose husbands have left them and their children. This broader figure should therefore be understood in the context of the particular group or period she was referring while talking with The Logical Indian.
In rural communities, women who lose their husbands or are left to raise children alone can find themselves without adequate family or financial support.
RDT initially responded by providing dry nutrition supplies to young single mothers with children. The supplies included rice, dal, sugar, jaggery, wheat, ragi, cereals, oil and soaps. But Ferrer wanted the programme to move beyond relief.
The focus gradually shifted towards economic empowerment and livelihoods. Ferrer said that in three regions, around 300 single mothers have taken up different businesses. A team of 20 trained counsellors also works with women who need continued support.
The objective is to help women move towards economic independence and live with dignity.
Some women who initially received assistance have eventually told the organisation that they no longer need support and that the assistance should instead be given to another woman who needs it.
For Ferrer, that moment represents a particularly meaningful form of empowerment: when a woman moves from being a recipient of support to becoming someone who can stand independently.
Learning to Take the Wheel
For some vulnerable women, independence has quite literally begun with learning to take the wheel.
Ferrer also played a significant role in creating livelihood opportunities for vulnerable women, particularly single women, through an intensive auto-driving programme that combined vocational training with self-defence.
The programme began in 2023 with 23 women. A subsequent batch of 22 women brought the total number of participants to 45. The women came from different parts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The training went beyond driving. It included assistance with licensing, vehicle maintenance and road safety, as well as self-defence, yoga and counselling.
For women who had often experienced financial dependence or social vulnerability, learning to drive an auto-rickshaw offered more than a potential source of income.
It gave them the ability to move independently, earn for themselves and navigate public spaces with greater confidence.
The steering wheel became more than a tool for earning money. It represented mobility. It represented confidence.
And for women accustomed to depending on others, it represented the possibility of taking control of an important part of their own lives.
The programme reflects Ferrer’s wider approach to empowerment: support should create capability, and capability should create independence.
From Livelihoods to Healthcare and Education
Ferrer’s work with women forms part of a much wider social development effort through RDT.
The organisation operates three hospitals and has tie-ups with hospitals in Bengaluru, including St. John’s, NIMHANS, Narayana and Baptist Hospital, when specialised treatment is not available through its own facilities.
Ferrer said that around 1,500 deliveries take place each month in two RDT hospitals. The annual figure associated with this statement should be confirmed separately before publication rather than calculated from the monthly figure.
Education is another major area of work.
Ferrer said RDT supports around 350 to 400 students every year with higher education after Class 10, with equal participation of girls and boys.
She also said around 250 students have gone on to become MBBS doctors, along with many others who have become engineers and lawyers. The organisation supports community-based education from nursery through Class 10.
It also offers a one-year course covering French, German, Spanish and English, along with soft skills, hard skills and basic computer skills. For Ferrer, education is another form of opportunity the opportunity to imagine a different future and acquire the skills to pursue it.
Reaching Tribal Communities
RDT’s work also extends to tribal communities, including the Chenchu communities living in forest areas of Telangana.
Ferrer describes communities where access to healthcare, education, food, transportation and drinking water remains limited. To reach people living in forest settlements, RDT operates mobile clinics staffed by doctors and nurses.
The organisation has also constructed a clinic near the forest at Mannanur. Ferrer said RDT has built 10,000 houses for people who moved out of forest areas.
For communities living far from conventional services, bringing healthcare and other forms of support closer to them becomes essential to making those services genuinely accessible.
Creating Opportunities with Dignity
Ferrer’s understanding of empowerment also extends to transgender communities.
She said RDT has constructed eight houses for transgender people in one area and supported 12 people in starting businesses.
Ferrer also employed a transgender woman as a chef in the organisation’s canteen. Before doing so, she spoke with her staff to ensure that the woman would be accepted and feel comfortable in the workplace.
The emphasis was not simply on employment, but on dignity and belonging.
“Today, I am in the Rural Development Trust, and with the dignity I have.”
For Ferrer, inclusion means creating an environment where people can participate in ordinary social and economic life with a sense of dignity.
A Second Life Through Support
Among the stories that have stayed with Ferrer is that of Supriya, a young woman who became isolated after losing her parents.
RDT counsellors reached out to her, arranged treatment and later supported her through two years at its shelter home.
Over time, Supriya began teaching other students, worked at the organisation’s canteen and eventually married.
Her description of that journey captures what sustained support can mean to someone whose life has been disrupted.
“She says, ‘One life my parents gave and my second life RDT gave through our counselling and women empowerment.” This story goes beyond charity.
The intervention didn’t end with immediate assistance. It continued through counselling, care, skills, work and the opportunity to rebuild a life.
“Women Can Do Anything If There Are Opportunities”
In her conversation with The Logical Indian, Ferrer offered a simple message to young women:
“One thing is, women can do anything if there are opportunities.”
She encourages women to identify what works for them, seek mentors and support when needed, and make themselves visible in society.
“The ideas you should be seeing around you, what works for you better, and what you can do better.” For Ferrer, formal education is not the only measure of a woman’s ability to become an entrepreneur.
Speaking about women managing cooperatives, she points to their practical understanding of money and business:
“My women may have very little education, maybe third class, fourth class, or they don’t know anything, but what is money and how much money is, they know very well.”
The point is not that education is unimportant. Rather, Ferrer believes that limited formal education should not prevent women from recognising opportunities, learning practical skills and taking responsibility.
“Opportunities are there in the world, there in the society, there surrounding our areas, so take the opportunity, don’t sit idle.”
The Logical Indian Perspective
Empowerment begins with an opportunity, whether it is a loan, a skill, a home or a livelihood. Through her work with RDT, Visha Ferrer’s approach focuses on helping women move beyond receiving support to making decisions, earning independently and building lives with dignity.
From women becoming entrepreneurs and cooperative bank leaders to single mothers building livelihoods, these efforts highlight how access to resources and practical skills can help people shape their own futures. As Ferrer puts it, sometimes all it takes is “a small push.”
The real impact lies in what happens next: when support becomes self-reliance and opportunity creates lasting change.
Do you believe financial independence can transform how women see their own potential?
