Presented by:- Submitted to:-Shubham Choudhary Prof. Rajesh Kikani (144153)

IntroductionThe 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.

These are women who earn a living through their own labour or small businesses.

SEWA's main office is located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

SEWA is strongly supported by the World Bank which holds it out as a model to be replicated elsewhere.

Gandhian thinking is the guiding force for SEWA’s poor, self-employed members in organising for social change. They follow the principles of satya (truth), ahinsa (non-violence), sarvadharma (integrating all faiths, all people) and khadi (propagation of local employment and self reliance).

SEWA is both an organisation and a movement.

The SEWA movement is enhanced by its being a sangam or confluence of three movements :

the labour movement, the cooperative movement and the women’s movement.

History of SEWASelf Employed Women's Assoication, SEWA was born in 1972

as a trade union of self employed women. 

It grew out of the Textile Labour Association , TLA, India's oldest and largest union of textile workers founded in 1920 by a women, Anasuya Sarabhai.

The inspiration for the union came from Mahatma Gandhi, who led a successful strike of textile workers in 1917.

Goals of SEWASEWA's main goals are to organize women workers for

full employment and self-reliance. 

SEWA aims to mainstream marginalized, poor women in the informal sector and lift them out of their poverty. 

 The following eleven question have emerged from the members and continually serve as a guide for all members, group leaders, executive committee members and full-time organisers of SEWA.

It is also useful for monitoring SEWA’s progress and the relevance of its various activities and their congruence with member’s reality and priorities.

The Eleven Questions of SEWAHave more members obtained more employment ?Has their income increased ?Have they obtained food and nutrition ?Has their health been safeguarded ?Have they obtained child-care?Have they obtained or improved their housing ?Have their assets increased ? (e.g. their own savings, land, house, work-space,

tools or work, licenses, identity cards, cattled and share in cooperatives; and all in their own name.

Have the worker’s organisational strength increased ?Has worker’s leadership increased ?Have they become self-reliant both collectively and individually ?Have they become literate?

Questions 1 to 7 are linked to the goal of full employment while 8 to 11 are those concerned with SEWA’s goal of self reliance. However each of these are interconnected to each other. In 1998 "aagewan’s" suggested including education in the broadest sense as the eleventh question to be addressed by SEWA.

About Ela Bhatt

Ela Ramesh Bhatt (born 7 September 1933) is an Indian cooperative organiser, activist and Gandhian, who founded the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (SEWA) in 1972, and served as its general secretary from 1972 to 1996.

She is an Lawyer, philanthropist.Founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association in IndiaFounder of India’s first women’s bank, the Cooperative Bank of

SEWAMember of the Indian Parliament 1986-89Gandhian practitioner of non-violence and self-reliance.

Early life and background

Ela Bhatt was born in Ahmedabad in India.

She had done studied in Surat from sarvajanik Girls High School from 1940 to 1948.

She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the M.T.B. College (South Gujarat University) in Surat in 1952.

 Ela entered the Sir L. A. Shah Law College in Ahmedabad. In 1954 she received her degree in law and a Gold Medal for her work on Hindu law.

Career Bhatt started her career teaching English for a short time at SNDT

Women's University, better known as SNDT, in Mumbai. But in 1955 she joined the legal department of the Textile Labour Association (TLA) in Ahmedabad.

In 1956, Ela Bhatt married Ramesh Bhatt.

 She went to Israel where she studied at the Afro-Asian Institute of Labor and Cooperatives in Tel Aviv for three months, receiving the International Diploma of Labor and Cooperatives in 1971.

Awards Padma Shri 1985 Padma Bhushan 1986 Ramon Magsaysay Award 1977 Right Livelihood Award 1984 Niwano Peace PrizeDoctorate degree in Humane Letters, Harvard

University 2001 Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and

Development 2011 NDTV's 25 Greatest Living Indian Legends 2013

SEWA's Membership StateMembershipGujarat 10,00,224Bihar 82,460Delhi 40,010West Bengal (Murshidabad only) 7,057Rajasthan 37,000Kerala 10,000Uttrakhand 4,470Madhya Pradesh 6,00,950Uttar Pradesh 1,27,780Maharashtra 4,500Assam 1,613Meghalaya 400Kashmir 212

Total 19,16,676

Sewa ServicesSEWA Bank Health Care Child Care Vimo SEWA Legal Services Capacity building of SEWA members Housing and Infrastucture Video SEWA

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