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SEWA, THE UNION EMPOWERING INFORMAL WOMEN WORKERS THROUGH CO-OPS  
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Anca Voinea
January 3, 2025
Co-op News
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_ Sewa demonstrates how crucial it is that all co-op members –
whether professionals or grassroots workers – share the values that
the federation represents, and think not just of personal benefits but
benefits for the collective and all its members. _

, Sewa Insurance members share their stories.

 

Ahmedabad, a city with a population of 7.4m, is renowned for its
cotton textiles – an industry which saw it dubbed the Manchester of
India.

This thriving sector relied on informal women workers, who in 1971
decided to ask for decent wages. They were joined in their plight
by the late Ela Bhatt, 
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lawyer and a labour organiser, who set up the Self-Employed Women’s
Association (Sewa) [[link removed]] – an association of
self-employed informal women workers in 1972.

At first, Sewa focused on getting recognition for these women as
workers and securing the same benefits that formal sector workers had.
However, after Sewa members negotiated minimum wages and decent
working conditions, middlemen stopped offering them contracts,
prompting them to set up their own co-ops. 

Today, Sewa Cooperative Federation is world renowned, and has inspired
similar efforts around the world.

Earlier this month, I joined Dr Sarah Alldred from the Co-operative
College on a two-day visit to Sewa. We set off on Monday morning,
stopping first at Sewa’s premises. As we waited to be picked up, we
were approached by a group of high school students from the local
Mahatma Gandhi International School who wanted to know what we were
doing in Ahmedabad. Their teacher told us Sewa is well-known in
Ahmedabad.

Setting off, our first destination was Sewa’s premises. The journey
gave us the opportunity to see the Gates of Ahmedabad, built during
different periods of India’s history, starting from 1411 as the
entrances to the city.

At the Sewa HQ, we were greeted with a traditional welcome ceremony,
being given garlands and having a “tikka” (vermillion) applied on
our foreheads.

We got to speak with the chair of Sewa Co-operative Federation, Mirai
Chatterjee, its managing director, Jigisha Maheta, and some of their
other colleagues.

“Sewa was born when a group of women workers who were street vendors
mainly or clothes vendors said – ‘Why don’t we have an
organisation for ourselves’,” said Chatterjee.

“At the time it is was groundbreaking event because no such trade
union of informal workers existed in India, and that, too, of informal
women workers. So when Ela Bhatt went to the trade union Registrar, he
couldn’t understand this kind of trade union. ‘Who will you
agitate against, who will you fight against?’ And she said – ‘We
are from the informal economy. Forty per cent of workers in the
informal economy are self-employed. We don’t have an employer but we
have many issues. So we would like to organise into a union’ – and
that is how Sewa was born in 1972.”

With access to funding posing a crucial barrier for these women, Sewa
set up a bank in 1974. It was the first women’s co-op bank – not
just in India, but in the world.

“And from a handful of women now we have over half a million
depositors,” said Chatterjee.

Sewa Bank offers savings, loans and micro insurance products as part
of a full-circle service to help poor women become self-reliant.

We got to visit the bank on our next stop and spoke with managing
director Jayshree Vyas, who told us more about the bank’s early
days.

She explained that while the women did not know how to run a bank,
they said: “We are poor but we are many”. Each of the 4,000 Sewa
informal women workers gave 10 rupees to set up the bank.

The bank operates on trust and does not require guarantees. Instead,
it relies on community leaders to remind those who fail to pay off
their debt. Around 60% of the women taking loans from Sewa Bank are
not digitally trained, which means bank employees have to collect in
person from the borrowers’ homes. This helps to create a
relationship of mutual trust between the bank and the borrower that is
not confined to one transaction.

Photo of Sewa’s founder at the Sewa Bank premises

Our journey continued with a visit to the Shri Kada Fruit and
Vegetable Cooperative, where we met farmer members. They told us how
being part of the co-op means they can pool resources and bypass
middlemen. One of the co-op’s leaders runs a collection centre at
her house, which enables farmers to drop their produce there and save
costs, rather than have to travel to other villages.

The farmers were keen to learn about co-ops in other countries –
particularly agri co-ops that are performing well. They also wanted to
find out more about the challenges these co-ops face, such as
attracting young people – a problem they share.

The second day of the tour began with a visit to a Sewa pharmacy. This
particular pharmacy, sited across the road from a hospital, is run by
women workers and open to the public. Sewa operates four pharmacies,
two of which – including the one we visited – are open 24 hours.

Operating 24-hour pharmacies is not without challenges, with female
staff noting that night shifts can occasionally attract angry
customers.

Covid posed another challenge, but the pharmacies managed to stay
open, offering a vital service to their communities.

Both employees we met have worked at the pharmacy for over two
decades. Asked why she had stayed so long, one of them told us that
when she started working at the pharmacy, she earned 900 rupees a
month. Shortly afterward she received an offer from a competitor for
2,500 rupees a month, which she refused because she felt she was
working for a good cause. Now she earns 30,000 rupees a month. 

We left the pharmacy and headed towards the Sewa Sangini Childcare
Cooperative, a nursery is based in an impoverished area of Ahmedabad.
One of Sewa’s 13 childcare centres, it is open to Sewa members –
as well as people in the local community, for whom the nursery is an
introduction to Sewa; many of them move on to use the federation’s
other services. 

Visiting the Shri Kada Fruit and Vegetable Cooperative

Children of street vendors are among those cared for. At the centre,
they receive three meals a day, lessons, and visits with a doctor
every three months. The nursery also engages with parents regularly,
including fathers, to ensure they are aware of their
responsibilities. 

Parents pay only 500 rupees a month for the service – but running
the centre costs 30,000 rupees a month, which means Sewa relies on
donations to operate it.

At the centre, we met some of Sewa’s insurance agents who told us
that explaining the concept of insurance to Sewa workers is
challenging. Sewa started its insurance business in 1992 to offer a
back-up plan in case members cannot pay loans.

One employee told us that she used to sell sarees – and when she
came across a Sewa insurance agent, she realised she could sell
insurance products to her clients. She now collects premium payments
from 2,900 Sewa members. 

Another Sewa Insurance employee told how she grew up in a Sewa
childcare centre and now works for the federation’s marketing team.
 

We left the centre and headed toward Sewa’s production unit for
Ayurvedic medicine, one of the beneficiaries of the funding from UK
co-ops to Sewa in 2021.

The centre is operated by the Lok Swashthya Cooperative, established
in 1990 to provide women in the informal economy with access to basic
health services. Today the co-op has over 1,500 members. The medicine
produced here is sold in Sewa pharmacies, general practitioner centres
and online. 

After visiting the centre, we headed back to Sewa’s premises to meet
some of the young women participating in its Surjan programme, which
was funded by UK co-ops. But how did this support come about? 

“There was a quite a severe outbreak of Covid in India,” says
Alldred. “The UK co-operative movement wanted to support
co-operatives as an act of solidarity and as an act of principle six,
co-operation among co-operatives, so we reached out to Sewa Federation
and raised £100,000 to send in solidarity. 

“Around £70,000 of that fund was for direct support, for oxygen
tanks, masks and for working capital to help co-operatives survive
through Covid. And then the [remaining] £30,000 was for the two
incubator
co-operatives.”

The project focused on providing research and communication skills to
young women in Ahmedabad. As part of this, they also received  soft
skills and self-defence training. The young women we met told us that
before taking part in  the programme they had never been allowed to
leave their homes unaccompanied by male family members. They said the
programme had helped them gain confidence. Some were even able to get
jobs by using the new skills they had acquired. They were also curious
to know whether the UK had any women-only co-ops. 

Next, the tour took us to Ela Bhatt’s house. Sewa’s founder died
in 2022, leaving a huge legacy. We met her son and sister, both of
whom were keen to learn more about Sewa’s current work and the wider
co-operative movement.  

Our last stop was Mirai Chatterjee’s house, where we were able to
delve deeper into the issues of concern to Sewa and its members.

The funding from the UK movement “really touched us deeply,” she
said, “because it’s solidarity in action, it’s co-operative to
co-operative in action, it is sisterhood in action and we have not
been able to forget that.”

Sewa pharmacy visit

This money allowed Sewa to support a dozen small women’s
co-operatives across India, said Chatterjee – “two of them savings
and credit co-operatives, which almost went under because women
couldn’t pay back their loans. 

“This money helped to keep the co-operatives afloat during Covid.

“Most of these co-operatives took working capital from us from
300,000 to 500,000 rupees – and the interesting thing is that most
of them paid it back. We didn’t take any interest, we had a small
margin, just for auditing and other administrative costs, but we
thought this was a good practice so some of it was a grant for some of
the smaller co-operatives who were struggling.

“But the savings and credit co-operatives, our health co-operative,
which produces traditional medicines – all of them returned the
money so the fund is still with us and we’re able to lend to
others. 

“From this experience we have been advocating with our government
that, if you want to support women’s co-operatives – small,
informal worker co-operatives – through good times and bad, not just
during crises, then you need to create this kind of livelihood fund
which will provide working capital, either as soft loans or some kind
of revolving fund so the co-operatives can grow and prosper.

“The co-operatives have shown their resilience through the whole
Covid period, so really, as I said, we are very touched and grateful
to the UK co-operative movement.”

We also asked Chatterjee about the challenge of getting young women
involved in co-ops, particularly children of second and third
generation Sewa members.

She explained that most of them want to do things differently,
particularly due to being more educated and understanding digital
tools. To appeal to this generation, Sewa used some of the funding
from the UK co-op movement to provide digital, communication and
research training to young women related to Sewa members. 

The next step will be to bring these women together to launch two
co-ops – but getting their families’ approval has been
difficult. 

“As you perhaps are aware, we live in a very patriarchal society and
one of the ways that  that’s manifesting is control of women and
girls’ mobility,” said Chatterjee. “So it’s difficult for
girls and women to come out of the home if they are unattended or
unsupported by a male family member. 

“It has taken a lot of work with the parents to explain that
they’re not wandering here and we’re all together as a group,
they’re safe and they’re with us, they’re with Sewa and this is
a new way of coming together, forming a collective and hopefully a
co-operative soon, and getting regular livelihoods in the new
way.” 

The long flight back to the UK gave us time to consider the key
learnings of our visit. While our time with Sewa was short, the UK
co-op movement’s support for it is a long-term commitment.

Sewa’s pioneering role in formalising informal women workers was
also highlighted in a recent report by the International Labour
Organization (ILO). 

Lok Swashthya Cooperative Ayurvedic production unit

It says that Sewa demonstrates just how crucial it is that all members
– whether professionals or grassroots workers – share the values
that the federation represents, and think not just of personal
benefits but benefits for the collective and all its members.  

Another important lesson is that during the initial period of a co-op
relationship, when connections are being made and trust established,
physical meetings are irreplaceable, with Sewa staff visiting co-ops
and their members regularly.

Covid also showed that while a standalone co-operative will struggle
to withstand crises, collective bodies like Sewa Co-operative
Federation are able to garner the resources needed overcome them.

The ILO’s report is just one of the many studies highlighting the
difference made by Sewa. But while this research speaks volumes, it
cannot put into words the sight of happy, well-nourished and looked
after children at Sewa’s childcare centres, or of young women
empowered to become advocates in their local community. 

One thing is certain, with more support, Sewa can not only continue to
fulfil its mission, but also keep growing the women’s co-operative
movement in India.

_Anca Voinea focuses on international news – and with French,
Spanish and Romanian languages under her belt, this is an important
area of growth for the news._

_On 2 September 1871, the first issue of The Co-operative News was
published, as “A Record of Industrial, Political, Humanitarian, and
Educational Progress”.  “What is Co-operation?” its opening
lines asked. “The question which heads this article is to
appear­ance so simple that many persons will be almost inclined to
call it foolish, and yet a very little thought will show that it is
much more easy to put the question than to find a proper reply to
it…”_

_The publication was a long time coming and was preceded by journals
such as The Co-operator (founded by the Manchester and Salford Society
in 1860. This was taken over by journalist Henry Pitman who shouldered
the paper’s full financial burden and indulged his passionate
opposition to Dr Edward Jenner’s anti-smallpox vaccination
programme, to the extent of renaming the publication ‘The
Co-operator and Anti-Vaccinationist’ and a growing clamour for the
co-op movement to produce its own weekly newspaper. _

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