The Self-Employed Women's Association of India (SEWA) is a trade union for poor, self-employed women workers in India.
SEWA was founded in 1972 by the noted Gandhian and civil rights leader Dr Ela Bhatt. SEWA's main office is located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and it works in several states of India. SEWA had a membership of 966,139 in the year 2008. SEWA members are women who earn a living through their own labour or small business. They do not obtain regular salaried employment with welfare benefits like workers in the organized sector. They are the unprotected labour force of India. Constituting 93% of the labour force, these are workers of the unorganized sector. Of the female labour force in India, more than 94% are in the unorganized sector. However their work is not counted and hence remains invisible. SEWA is strongly supported by the World Bank which holds it out as a model to be replicated elsewhere.
Swashrayi Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank is SEWA members' largest cooperative, the first of its kind in india. The bank is owned by the self-employed women as share holders; policies are formulated by their own elected Board of women workers. The Bank is professionally run by qualified managers accountable to the Board.
SEWA Bank was established in 1974 with 4000 members each contributed Rs.10 as share capital. Today there are 93,000 active depositers. In 1999, SEWA Bank celebrated 25 years of providing financial services to poor, self-employed women. Always in debt, our members initially raised the issue of their need for credit so as to free them from the clutches of money-lenders and traders, to enhance their businesses, build up assets in their own name, for children's education, for the several emergencies including illness that they face and many other purposes.
