SEWA’s experience with women SHGs, cooperative & member-owned organisations

Can development programmes sponsored by the government lead to poor women’s empowerment? At the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a member-based organisation of poor informal sector workers across 18 states of India, we believe they can, if rightly used.

If given a chance, poor women are eager to be part of development and come into the mainstream of social and economic lives. SEWA follows a need-based and demand-driven approach. We identify the needs and issues of the members and link them with government programmes. We do not create parallel structures and it also helps in effective delivery and last mile reach of the schemes. The process of doing so leads to their empowerment. The poor women themselves become the leaders of development.

SEWA has been working in the Patan and Banaskantha districts of Gujarat. These districts are classified as desert areas and successive disasters have reduced the rural poor’s economic status from subsistence to survival level. The hostile climatic conditions, degraded soil, saline water, severe heat and strong hot blasts of wind make life very difficult.

The women’s first need was drinking water. The Government had installed a pipeline to provide potable drinking water through the Gujarat Water Supply and Sewerage Board (GWSSB). The Water Supply Scheme successfully provided one of the basic necessities for survival of people and livestock to an extent. However, the hostile geo-climatic conditions called for immediate starting of income-generating activities to sustain and stabilise households.

This was the position when SEWA first began work in these districts in 1988. We started with extensive field visits and meetings with village communities, especially including women. They had water. But water alone was not enough to survive. They wanted work to stabilise their household income in their own village.

Dairying, the second major occupation in the area, also suffered due to unavailability of fodder during the dry summer months.

Read A void that cannot be filled: SEWA founder Ela Bhatt dies in Ahmedabad

SEWA organised the women of Banaskantha district to be part of the Government of India’s DWCRA (Development of Women and Children in Rural Area) programme to fight rural poverty through women’s economic participation. In essence, DWCRA is a subset of Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) with women as a specific target group. The embroidery groups set up by SEWA were linked to DWCRA. This collective effort towards earning a sustainable livelihood and leadership was a major experience for the women, many of whom earned a new-found respect from their families and communities due to their entrepreneurial ventures. SEWA also formed savings and credit groups for women in Banaskantha to help them build capital for their business.

In 1992, SEWA formed the Banaskantha DWCRA Mahila SEWA Association (BDMSA), a district-level association linking together all the producers’ groups created under the DWCRA plan.

The local women’s democratic organisations lead to empowerment. Organisations which are owned and controlled by producers themselves help members in removing their marginalisation and bring them into the mainstream. The local groups of craftswomen collectively could stand in the open market and bargain firmly for the piece rates of their products with the private traders.

Bhachiben Bhurabhai Aahir, DWCRA group leader of Vauva village, is illiterate. But she keeps all records in the notebooks with help from her niece. Through various capacity building trainings, the women now have a fuller idea of how to run and manage their own economic activity for maximum returns. This is a must for the success of any DWCRA group.

SEWA came across problems faced by women salt workers in 1988. Several women in desert villages had migrated to the desert to live and work on the salt pans. The organising process was disrupted.

SEWA studied and assessed the living and working conditions of salt workers. A report was then presented to the then Rural Labour Commissioner and two major programmes for the salt workers were initiated which included a mobile health van and a child care centre.

SEWA was the first organisation to implement these programmes of the Government of Gujarat (GOG) in 1990-91.

SEWA’s approach towards salt workers was to organise them into producer DWCRA groups. This enabled salt workers access to some revolving funds, provide technical input in manufacturing industrial salt rather than edible salt and ensure the market first.

SEWA, with help from the then Secretary, Rural Development, organised a tripartite meeting in 1991 with GOG, Central Salt and Marine Research Institute (CSMRI) and salt workers to discuss and finalise the strategy. The GOG, through the DWCRA programme, provided the needed revolving funds, while the CSMRI provided technical training to the workers on scientific methods to prepare salt pans, gradient, flow of brine and maintaining a degree of salinity to ensure quality production of industrial salt.

In 1999, SEWA and the Department of Rural Development in Gujarat founded the SEWA Gram Mahila Haat, a state-level marketing organisation aimed at reducing dependence on traders by providing direct technical, financial and marketing facilities to rural producers (from agriculture, to salt, forestry and handicrafts).

Dhaniben, a salt worker in the Little Rann of Kutch, emphasised on the need for a integrated approach. She says, “SEWA’s approach follows the ups and downs of our lives. If we are to come out of poverty, we need employment security with social security. And banking services, too. Without all of these, how can we be strong and self-reliant?”

It can be seen through the examples above that organised strength in the form of SHGs or cooperatives help women in increasing their livelihoods and bargaining power. Members’ own organisations and women-owned cooperatives can help them to scale-up and enter the mainstream.

Reema Nanavaty is Director, SEWA

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth

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