SEWA, Self-Employed Women's Association Case Study

What is SEWA?
The Self-Employed Women's Organization (SEWA) is a trade union registered in 1972 made up of poor, self-employed women workers who earn a living through their own labor or small businesses. As such, they do not have salaried employment and thus do not enjoy the welfare benefits that those in the salaried sector do. This sector represents 94% of working women in India. SEWA's two stated goals are full employment and self-reliance for its members. In pursuit of these goals, SEWA organizes these women for full emploreliance, including work security, income security, food security, and social security. The women are organized into cooperatives and federations to help and work as artisans, milk vendors, vegetable vendors, gum collectors, quarry workers, paper pickers, salt producers, small, marginal, and landless agrarian workers, and health workers.

SEWA's membership includes: 1) hawkers, vendors, and small businesswomen; 2) home-based workers; and 3) manual laborers and service providers. SEWA currently boasts a total of 84 cooperatives and federations and a membership of over 215,000 under the SEWA umbrella, including the following entities: SEWA Administration, SEWA Bank (including both housing and insurance services), the SEWA Health Care Program, SEWA Child Care, SEWA legal services, and SEWA Academy.

Overview of the Informal Economy
The informal sector was defined in 1993 to include small-unregistered enterprises, paid and unpaid workers in them and casual workers without fixed employers. Obtaining accurate statistics on this sector has been extremely difficult, and as a result there has been a historical underestimation of this sector's contribution to economic growth. Where statistics do exist, estimates are the informal sector represents between 45% and 60% of non-agricultural GDP. In India, about 64% of GDP is accounted for by the self-employed. There is also significant overlap between those working in the informal sector and those who are poor, and is greater for women than men. A study commissioned by the World Bank and written by S.V. Sethuraman and Jacques Charmes concluded:

• incomes of women and men are lower in the informal than in the formal sector
• the gender gap is higher in the informal than in the formal sector
• gender segregation means that women and men are involved in different activities or have different statuses within the same activity
• gender discrimination has led to gender gaps in education, access to credit, quality and location of business premises, scale of business, time constraints, and other constraints
• gender discrimination accounts for why a) more women relative to men are in informal employment, b) more men run micro enterprises in the informal sector, and c) income differences exist between women and men in the informal sector.

Introduction to the Project
SEWA plans to establish computer centers in eleven districts of Gujarat and eventually link all 977 villages through Information Technology. To this end, SEWA applied to the World Computer Exchange (WCE), a Boston-based nonprofit that brokers the donation of used computers. The application was accepted and SEWA was shipped half of the 400 donated computers (the rest will be employed in ten selected government schools). SEWA will use these for vocational training of SEWA members, improved communication within SEWA, administrative and design tasks for SEWA collectives, and computer-based education for the children of SEWA members. The impact of the project will be multifaceted. It will help the workers manage orders from district centers. It will assist in the maintenance of accounts and assure that middlemen are charging fair prices and eventually eliminate them completely. And it will also help workers in the informal sector stay in touch with the national as well as the global market.

Proposed Use of Information Technology
SEWA hopes to leverage the benefits of technology to strengthen the work efficiency of its members, grassroots managers, and their organizations. SEWA would utilize several different technologies to address different needs within the organization. Several SEWA units could use the new technologies, including the employment cell, the social security program, Data Warehousing and Management, and SEWA Academy.

The project proposed by SEWA has two primary goals:

1. To strengthen SEWA's institutional capacity to efficiently, effectively, and sustainably provide its services; and
   
   
2. To strengthen the capacity of its individual members to utilize Internet technology in their respective businesses, gaining access to information and thereby increasing their profits.

SEWA's employment cell would implement B2B e-commerce solutions for its grassroots providers that would enhance supply chain management by directly linking buyers and sellers, thereby eliminating the middleman. It would also provide them with instant access to information and markets in the outside world to give them a clearer idea of the demand for their products and the price they command. Additionally, members will be able to utilize the technology for record-keeping, business plan data and monitoring, marketing and e-commerce, and obtaining stock details.

SEWA's social security program, which allows women to serve as actual caregivers, would utilize new hardware and software to create a database to maintain information on health trainings and health camps where check-ups of poor women and children are held, keep track of the purchase and sale of medicines, and maintain child and member profiles and insurance records.

Data Warehousing and Management, which coordinates SEWA's different operations, would use the new hardware and software to create a database of its members. Each member would be given a code number, which would also serve as a membership number. A complete record of each member would then be kept. SEWA would also create a database of its meetings and programs at its regional centers in addition to its centers in Ahmedabad. This would permit better coordination amount its different units.

The SEWA Academy, which provides training and literacy programs while simultaneously researching policy change, will use the technology to provide ongoing leadership training for its members. It would train them on basic computer skills, including data entry, email, software programs, and the effective utilization of the Internet. It would use the computer tools to analyze data gathered by grassroots researchers in order to quantify the achievements of the SEWA movement. Furthermore, it could increase the life span of its current video library by transferring the exiting training material onto CDs. Additionally; SEWA has proposed that an information technology center be placed at the SEWA Academy for intensive hands-on computer training based on real-life exercises. It would be a multilingual resource center with audio-visual and multimedia modules and interactive software. Asha for Education, a nonprofit started in 1991 and run entirely by volunteers, is an action group that attempts to improve access to basic education in India by supporting projects that are secular and apolitical in nature. They will contribute toward cost sharing for the IT Unit.

Finally, SEWA will be able to leverage the Internet to communicate with other organizations around the globe in order to form a virtual alliance of organizations and groups of people in similar situations. Alternative trade organizations (ATOs) can act as an important link to new markets and provide valuable knowledge of innovations and product demands. It will also help SEWA link up with similar grassroots organizations worldwide, such as the International network of Home based workers (HOMENET), the International network of Street Vendors (STREETNET), and Women in Informal Employment, Globalizing, and Organizing (WIEGO).

Scalability
SEWA would initially train about 2000 organizers and grassroots leaders and 1000 children over the course of three years. It is also a replicable model that could be copied by other micro finance organizations.

Private/Public Sector Collaboration and Potential for Computer Usage
SEWA has been working with both the private and public sectors, and these partnerships represent possibilities for leveraging the technology made available to SEWA.

• Public Sector Collaboration
  SEWA has been actively collaborating with the government's anti-poverty and rural development initiatives in the districts. These efforts include the following:
  
  
  • SEWA used innovative mechanisms for providing drought relief in 2000.
    
    
  • The SEWA-promoted Kutchcraft Association has organized 101 DWRCA (Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas) group together with the Rural Development department. They will use computers to manage orders from the district centers, distribute work to the women and do the accounts. Software for managing the craftwork must still be developed.
    
    
  • In eight villages in Banaskantha, the National Watershed Development Program has been implemented with the government. Women have taken leadership in this activity.
    
    
  • With the help of the government Rural Workers Commission, support services like mobile health vans and child-care centers have been provided to salt workers.
    
    
  • In 5 districts, worker education classes have been organized with the labor department.
    
    
  • In two districts, underground rainwater harvesting tanks have been constructed with the support of the Gujarat Water Supply and Sanitation Board.
    
    
  • Housing programs for artisans have been developed in conjunction with the State Handicraft Development Corporation.
  
  
  
• Private Sector Collaboration
  In 1998, SEWA introduced a new management-training center with the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA). At this center, women have been trained in management, bookkeeping, and accounts. Linking all SEWA members via computers will enable SEWA Union leaders and barefoot managers get the high-quality leadership training and skills needed to manage the micro enterprises.

Obstacles
SEWA's lack of a revenue stream. Currently, SEWA receives grants from the Indian government and several U.S. development organizations, including UNICEF, the Ford Foundation, International Labor Organization, and the Unitarian Universalist Church's India Fund. However, the generation of a fixed revenue stream will be imperative to maintain the sustainability necessary for venture funding.

Funding Needs
SEWA will require site preparation for installation of computers in its rural centers and villages and intensive training of rural organizers and female leaders in computer skills, data entry, Internet use, e-mail, and appropriate software programs, and instruction in computer maintenance. It will need access to relevant (perhaps tailor-made) software. This includes linking them with potential suppliers and helping get the negotiation process with vendors underway. To meet these needs, SEWA will require $700,000.

For more Information Contact:
Reema Nanavaty
General Secretary
Self Employed Women's Association
SEWA Reception Center, Ahmedabad - 380 001, India
Email: mail@sewa.org