In 1972, Ela R. Bhatt founded the Self Employed Women’s Association or SEWA in Ahmedabad, India, now a two million member strong women's cooperative. Through SEWA, many poor women who make up more than 90% of the unprotected Indian labor force as house cleaners, street vendors, and field workers with no laws to protect them against their corrupt unofficial ‘middlemen’ bosses, have joined together to become a powerful unified voice demanding basic rights that people with jobs in the ‘formal’ sector enjoy.
Over sixty years ago, Mrs. Bhatt says she recognized this exploitation of poor women and used her experience as a lawyer and position as head of the women’s wing of India’s first trade union, the Textile Labor Association, to encourage 4,000 other women to join her and contribute a portion of their earnings to create the cornerstone of SEWA, its bank. In the past four and a half decades, the SEWA bank has helped countless numbers of poor self employed women have access to basic job rights such as health insurance, life insurance, bank accounts, and has enabled them to become home owners by providing low interest housing loans.
“I’m a great believer in organization; those who are weak have to come together to generate strength. Now these women have their own bank balances, land in their own name, they have access to insurance,” says Mrs. Bhatt. “Almost thirty years ago they were half starving,”
Mrs. Bhatt has also made supporting poor artisans a priority and rented a house near SEWA's office in Ahmedabad where the women can make and sell their crafts. (Visit Sewatfc.org to view/purchase crafts.)
SEWA is a confluence of three 1960's movements: the labor movement, the cooperative movement and the women’s movement. Mrs. Bhatt, who is married and has two children and three grandchildren, also says she was very much inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, the great leader who helped free India from British rule through nonviolence and who was also a huge supporter of women and worker rights, particularly the poor and vulnerable.
Today, there are SEWA branches in South Africa, whose members are almost all underprivileged black South African women, and Turkey.
In her own words: Ela R. Bhatt video Interviewed by SistersGeographic at her home in Ahmedabad, India: