This project aims to use behavioural science principles to strengthen the coaching skills of the frontline workers in the Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana programme. The 4,000 workers in this programme support 200,000 ultra-poor families to graduate from extreme poverty through a livelihoods approach.
The Government of Bihar launched the Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana (SJY) in 2018, a nationwide graduation approach programme. This is a pioneering scale-up to uplift 200,000 ultra-poor households out of extreme poverty by empowering them to be self-employed. JEEViKA uses village participatory appraisal and home visits to identify the poorest families and then provides an asset and monthly cash allowance. JEEViKA has hired over 5,500 SJY coaches across the state to provide mentoring to first-time entrepreneurs through home visits and weekly meetings for 24 months. CSBC has worked closely with JEEViKA and Bandhan Konnagar to produce a coaching toolkit for the SJY coaches to more effectively build entrepreneurial skills as a way out of generational poverty.
In 2022, CSBC completed a field diagnostic of the Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana in Gaya
District, where our team observed the interactions during the weekly coaching meetings
between the SJY Master Resource Persons (MRPs) and the SJY Didis (programme participants).
In addition, our team studied the training cascade, financial flows, and management and
monitoring system for SJY. This system assessment informed our focus on bringing behaviour
science insights to strengthen the coaching component of the programme.
An extensive
literature review identified core coaching topics for first-time entrepreneurs: confidence,
goal-setting for motivation, networking, problem-solving and negotiation.
In 2023, we trialled a prototype coaching kit in Nalanda District, where 25 SJY coaches were trained and provided coaching kits to use in the weekly coaching meetings with the SJY Didis. The CSBC team was in the field to observe the coaching and record user feedback. We further developed the kit based on the user feedback and understanding of how the system can provide better support and materials to the users.
In March 2024, at the SJY Visioning Conference in Jalpaiguri, we launched an updated version of the coaching kit for SJY programme managers of all 38 districts of Bihar. The coaching kit includes a motivational video and five video tutorials on essential entrepreneurial skills. Links to these materials are given below, and you will see thepopularity and use of the kit from the thousands of #views 🖒likes.
Navneet Kumar
Policy Manager (State Behavioural Insights Units)