SEWA is a trade union established in 1972 that represents poor, self-employed women workers in India. Its main goals are to organize women workers to achieve full employment, meaning secure work, income, food, and social security. SEWA pursues these goals through union action and cooperatives. It is guided by Gandhian principles and aims to empower women workers through their own movement. As of 2008, SEWA had over 966,000 members across India, primarily in Gujarat. Its services include SEWA Bank, healthcare, childcare, insurance, legal aid, training, housing assistance, and video documentation of members' work.

1. SEWA
Self Employed Women’s
Association
Introduction
 SEWA is a trade union registered in 1972.
 It is an organisation of poor, self-employed
women workers.
 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 )
 Practically, the strategy is carried out
through the joint action of union and
cooperatives.

2.  Gandhian thinking is the guiding force for SEWA’s poor, self-employed
members in organising for social change.
 We 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.
 It is also a movement of self-employed workers :
their own, home-grown movement with women
as the leaders.
 Through their own movement women become
strong and visible.

3. History of SEVA
 Self 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.

4. Goals of SEWA
 It has two main goals : Full Employment and Self
Reliance.
 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.

5. The Eleven Questions of SEWA :
1. Have more members obtained more employment ?
2. Has their income increased ?
3. Have they obtained food and nutrition ?
4. Has their health been safeguarded ?
5. Have they obtained child-care?
6. Have they obtained or improved their housing ?
7. 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.
8. Have the worker’s organisational strength increased ?
9. Has worker’s leadership increased ?
10. Have they become self-reliant both collectively and
individually ?
11. 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.

6. SEWA's Membership
 SEWA members are workers who have no fixed employee-
employer relationship and depend on their own labour for
survival.
 Hawkers, vendors and small business women
like vegetable, fruit, fish, egg and other vendors
 Home-based workers
like weavers, potters, bidi and agarbatti workers, papad rollers, ready-
made garment workers
 Manual labourers & service providers
like agricultural labourers, construction workers, contract labourers,
handcart pullers
 Producers & Services who invest their labour and capital to
carry out their businesses
like cattle rearers , salt workers, gum collectors, cooking & vending etc.

7. 2008 SEWA Membership
All - India Membership year – 2008
State Membership
Gujarat 5,19,309
Murshidabad 1,758
Delhi 15,771
Madhya Pradesh
- SEWA -Indore
3,82,000
Uttar Pradesh
- Bareli
- Lucknow
402
24,100
Kerala
- Trivandrum 675
Dehradhun 954
All India Membership 9,66,139
Gujarat Membership 5,19,309

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