Self Employed Women's Assocation (SEWA) creates 10 minute film about empowering women through income generation and cooperative assocations

Everyone who has read books on social change in India or even globally, has heard about SEWA. They are an amazing trade union for the unorganized sector and have helped thousands of people throughout India self-organize, secure livelihoods and have rights. I had the opportunity to visit them in 2010 and appreciate the work from their craft program and experience the great history of their work.
This short video is a depiction of the success of their work empowering women through income generation and cooperative assocations doing:

• selling plant seedlings
• food processing and package of spices and pulses
• crafts
• salt collection
• cleaning and sanitation cooperative for maintaining waste in villages
• production of vermi-compost
• business technology centers

VIEW THE FILM ON ONEWORLD SOUTH ASIA

Self Employed Women’s Association
SEWA is a trade union registered in 1972. It is an organisation of poor, self-employed women workers. These are women who earn a living through their own labour or small businesses. They do not obtain regular salaried employment with welfare benefits like workers in the organised sector. They are the unprotected labour force of our country. Constituting 93% of the labour force, these are workers of the unorganised sector. Of the female labour force in India, more than 94% are in the unorganised sector. However their work is not counted and hence remains invisible.	SEWA’s main goals are to organise women workers for full employment. Full employment means employment whereby workers obtain work security, income security, food security and social security (at least health care, child care and shelter). SEWA organises women to ensure that every family obtains full employment. By self-reliance we mean that women should be autonomous and self-reliant, individually and collectively, both economically and in terms of their decision-making ability.	SEWA is both an organisation and a movement. The SEWA movement is enhanced by its being a sangam or confluence of three movements : the labour movement, the cooperative movement and the women’s movement. But it is also a movement of self-employed workers : their own, home-grown movement with women as the leaders. Through their own movement women become strong and visible.