ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to refer two sets of learning: that a woman's perception of enterprise as being something that she can do changes, when certain conditions around her have changed, and that this change can, to a certain degree, be initiated by outside intervention. It presents a few 'lessons for development intervention' from the women, from analysing and comparing their cases. There were a number of positive cases where women had moved chi, from being despondent to being more confident, and were considering the possibility to doing something new, which could be employment or self-employment. For a woman the "deprivation trap" can be intensified by the mere fact of her gender, more so in societies where the status of women is very low. This seems to work on two levels: a social and economic level, with isolation, powerlessness and all the other factors that make the "deprivation trap".
