SEWA

SEWA is the Self-Employed Women's Association of India, a trade union founded in 1972 after a split in the Textile Labour Association (TLA). It was founded by the noted Gandhian and civil rights leader Dr. Ela Bhatt.

Today SEWA is a membership based organisation of poor, self-employed women workers. The members of SEWA earn a living through their own labour or small businesses. SEWA also work for those workers, who are employed in the informal sector, who might be called as unprotected labour force of India. Most of them do not have any access to the social security schemes of the government.

SEWA’s main goals are to organise women workers for full employment. 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 organises women to ensure that every family obtains full employment.

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

SEWA's main office is located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. However, it works in several others states in India. According to provisional statistics from the Ministry of Labour, SEWA had a membership of 606935 in 2002. [http://www.labourfile.org/superAdmin/Document/113/table%201.pdf]

SEWA received the Right Livelihood Award in 1984.

References

External links

* [http://www.sewa.org/ SEWA.org]