asha@yale.edu

Sending Computers To India

SELF EMPLOYED WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION (SEWA)
 

SEWA is a trade union registered in 1972. It is an organization of poor, self-employed women workers. These are women who earn a living through their own labour or small businesses. They do not obtain regular salaried employment with welfare benefits like workers in the organized sector. SEWA is the largest union in Gujarat. SEWA's membership in 1998 was 2,09,250, with more than half of the members in the state of Gujarat. Members are workers who depend on their own labour for survival. They are poor, illiterate and vulnerable. But they are extremely economically active, contributing very significantly to the economy and society with their labour. 64 % of the GDP is accounted for by the self-employed.

Self-employed workers include hawkers and vendors of food, clothes, and household items, home-based workers such as weavers, potters, and agarbatti workers, and manual labourers & service providers who do agricultural, construction, and domestic labour. 

GOALS of SEWA
SEWA's main goals are to organize women workers for full employment and self reliance. Full employment means employment whereby workers obtain work security, income security, food security and social security (at least health care, child care and shelter). SEWA organizes women to ensure that every family obtains full employment. Self-reliance means that women should be autonomous and self-reliant, individually and collectively, both economically and in terms of their decision-making ability. 

SEWA ACADEMY.  The SEWA Academy is a university for members. This year about 30,000 SEWA members participated in this educational process, learning about their contribution to the national economy, their roles and responsibilities as women their own organization and the driving force and values of their own movement.