Organizing and Collectivising Women
SEWA is rooted in its ability to organize and lead large-scale organizing efforts to improve the working, community, and social conditions. SEWA is a member-based organization, meaning its members are at the heart of its direction, focus, and efforts. Since its origin, SEWA has strengthened communities and informal sector working women by uniting and organizing.
By working at a grassroots level across India, SEWA is able to understand and transmit the issues members face across broad audiences, from a local to a national perspective. SEWA’s size, history, and reach allow large and long-lasting change through the organizing efforts. All of SEWA’s programs, from health to microfinance, rely on the strong unity and identity that SEWA develops through the organization.
SEWA’s direction and approaches reflect the needs of its communities.
Research
Case Studies
Pushpaben Soft-Toy maker
Pushpa behen, 40, was born in Benaras, far away from the city of Dehradun, where she currently lives. She had finished her 10th class in the year 1999, when she was married off. “He was only 8th pass and drove trucks for a living.”, she says. After her marriage, she had to shift to a region completely unfamiliar to her own lived experience.
Light at the End of the Tunnel
B1 jhuggi (slum) was established around 1984 as part of Raghubir Nagar, which lies in West Delhi. For over 10 years now, the main road, on the corner of which B1 jhuggi is settled, has had streetlights. Over the years, these have been upgraded on multiple occasions, but they function erratically, leading to accidents, multiple cases of theft, as well as harassment.
A New Playground
Families living in lane number 200 of Jahangirpuri’s B Block had always stepped inside their homes with muddy shoes. Dirty water overflowing from clogged drains along the lane would meander down, making its way inside the homes of those living on the ground floor.
Mubarakpur and Danapur’s Fight Against COVID-19
The community members of Mubarakpur and Danapur communicated their distress and anxieties of having to die of starvation if food supplies did not reach them any sooner. Understanding the emergency of the situation, SEWA aagewans redirected their efforts and channelled in supplies from the government and distributed it among community members by the ward councillor.