India's Self-Employed Women's Association: Empowerment through Mobilization of Poor Women on a Large Scale

This document presents a case study on SEWA (the Self-Employed Women's Association). It states that SEWA's objective is to empower poor women working in the informal sector so they can achieve secure employment and self-reliance.

The document highlights that SEWA serves its members through:

• A union with both urban union and rural branches, that helps members in their collective struggle for fair treatment and access to justice, to markets, and to services;
• Cooperatives that help members produce and market the fruits of their labor and build their assets;
• Member services that are financed partly by user charges, but also in part by donors, and by government departments that have been unsuccessful in providing the services for which they are responsible by statute.

It concludes by outlining major lessons learnt from the SEWA experience:

• Organizing members helps to ensure ownership and provides a firm foundation for future growth;
• Values at the core of an organization help establish consistency in its purpose, and serve to attract and retain highly motivated staff and members;
• Leadership is crucial in defining an organization's vision and in establishing management and behavioral practices that reduce social distance between corporate management and grassroots members.