Nurturing Women-Owned Collective Enterprises

The Women’s Enterprise Support System (WESS) is SEWA Bharat’s dedicated enterprise support model designed to address the challenges faced by WCEs such as farmer producer companies and artisan groups that struggle to grow due to lack of an enabling ecosystem.WESS provides hands-on support to help grassroots women run and govern their enterprises effectively and efficiently. Its core focus is not just on improving business performance, but on strengthening women’s ownership, leadership, and decision-making within these enterprises. WESS provides support in strengthening:

Grassroots Governance & Community Leadership
Financial Management & Compliances
Business Planning & Operations
Market Access & Linkages

WESS works closely with enterprises over time helping them solve day-to-day challenges, improve operations, and become financially sustainable. Unlike traditional incubation models, it combines technical know-how with ongoing support, which helps businesses deal with complicated regulatory systems, access to finance, and strengthen internal capacities; supporting women leaders to understand their roles, take decisions, and build confidence in managing their enterprises. This ensures that enterprises are not just functional, but owned and led effectively by women themselves.

After having tested and built our services while partnering with SEWA’s collective enterprises, WESS has now expanded its services to supporting women-led collective enterprises developed by government schemes and programmes through the Assam State Rural Livelihood Mission (ASRLM).

0

Enterprises supported by WESS

0

Women reached through WESS enterprises

0

Shareholders/members of WESS enterprises

0

Women provided with Governance and Leadership training

0

Women employed through WESS enterprises

The Women’s Enterprise Support System

SEWA’s Women Enterprise Support System (WESS) is a branch of the SEWA movement, with the purpose of incubating and accelerating more women-run collective enterprises. The focus group of the ESS is women workers in the informal economy, both urban and rural, and their micro and collective enterprises. Since most of our members have never been business owners themselves, SEWA supports in organizing groups in a community, building their operational capacities and then registering collective businesses.

Over the past 6+ years, WESS anchored within SEWA’s broader enterprise work has demonstrated strong evidence of impact across multiple states and sectors. It has supported a diverse cohort of enterprises including farmer producer companies, artisan collectives, and financial cooperatives by strengthening governance systems, improving compliance, enabling market access, and has helped women become leaders.

Cohort 2020-2023

SEWA Bharat’s research on microentrepreneurship

Bihar Mahila Sakh Swavlambi Sahkari Samiti

Bihar’s only women-led credit cooperative, this credit cooperative has 12,000 shareholders across 3 districts: Bhagalpur, Katihar, and Munger. The enterprise enables regular savings, and access to loans and other financial products.

SEWA Bharat’s research on women's collective enterprises

SEWA Sarthak

Sarthak SEWA Pvt. Ltd. is an enterprise that promotes financial inclusion via business correspondents, currently spanning 4 districts of Uttarakhand and 3 districts of Punjab. It extends financial services and literacy to rural and remote unbanked populations with core values of financial transparency, social service, and quality customer service at its heart.

Urban land rights - women workers advocating for housing access in India

Ruaab SEWA Artisans’ Producer Company

Ruaab SEWA Artisans’ Producer Company was founded by the home-based workers of Delhi and silk weavers of Bihar in 2009, as an intervention to the social and financial exploitation of women in the garment supply chain. It is owned and operated by the artisans, providing them control of their work and production. Ruaab is on a journey of reshaping the artisans’ roles within the global supply chain and also, in their homes and communities.

SEWA Bharat’s research on urban land rights

Delhi Thrift & Credit Cooperative

Mahila SEWA Urban Cooperative Thrift & Credit Society Ltd. was founded in 2007, for more than 7000 women in Delhi. This self-managed cooperative provides women with saving schemes, access to credit and has enabled women to be financially independent. As women have ownership over the organization, all the financial services are dynamic and needs-based to suit women workers of the informal economy.

Intervention Methods of the WESS

SEWA ESS has been designed as a holistic Women Enterprise Support System, which works with grassroots women-run enterprises across sectors, geographies, and any stage of business growth. The approach undertaken is in-depth business support integrated with mobilising and social protection.

In-depth intervention

Built as a 3-year partnership, where the enterprise and the ESS join hands to achieve agreed-upon business and impact goals.

Features of the program:

In-depth Needs Assessment
Mentor matching
Professional support
Long-term flexible investment
Access to all ESS services
Capacity Building of Board, Staff, and Shareholders

Light touch support

Short-term engagements with enterprises as per their needs, ranging from 3 to 6 months of work. ESS offers a range of services like training, marketing, operational support, report writing and documentation, and any other business needs.

Peer networks

Enterprises once connected to the ESS, can join in discussion groups with other women-run enterprises in the same sector. At this point, we are hosting two peer networks in two core SEWA domains: one of artisans enterprises and another of agricultural enterprises.

Services Offered

Enterprise Development Services

Strategy & Business Planning
HR & Institution Development
Finance & Compliance
Capital Support
Market Linkages
Marketing Communications
Data Analytics
Market Research
Digital Literacy

Continuous Capacity Building for Leadership, Management & Governance

Governance & leadership related for grassroots management
Technical skill building

Leverage Government Schemes and Platforms

Public procurement
Government schemes for enterprises
Linkages to government programmes
Advocacy

An Innovation Lab

Unlocking opportunities by continuously adapting market developments for and with women in the informal economy

The gains of innovation are often last to reach poor, informal women workers. The Innovation Lab bridges this gap and brings new opportunities to these women, designed as per their needs and by developing sustainable models.