Self Employed Women's Association - About Us - SEWA MEMBER BASED organization of poor working women.

In our experience, poor women’s growth, development and employment occurs when they have work and income security and food security. It also occurs when they are healthy, able to access child care and have a roof over their heads. In order to ensure that we are moving in the direction of our two goals of Full Employment and Self Reliance, constant monitoring and evaluation is required. In a membership-based organisation, it is the member’s priorities and needs which necessarily shapes the priorities and direction of the organisation. Hence, it is appropriate that member's themselves develop their own yardstick for evaluation. The following ten question have emerged from the members and continually serve as a guide for all members, group leaders, executive committee members and full-time organisers of SEWA. It is also useful for monitoring SEWA’s progress and the relevance of its various activities and their congruence with member’s reality and priorities. It also increases the accountability of SEWA’s leaders and organisers, to their members.

The Eleven Questions of SEWA :

Have more members obtained more employment ?
Has their income increased ?
Have they obtained food and nutrition ?
Has their health been safeguarded ?
Have they obtained child-care?
Have they obtained or improved their housing ?
Have their assets increased ? (e.g. their own savings, land, house, work-space, tools or work, licenses, identity cards, cattled and share in cooperatives; and all in their own name.
Have the worker’s organisational strength increased ?
Has worker’s leadership increased ?
Have they become self-reliant both collectively and individually ?
Have they become literate?

Questions 1 to 7 are linked to the goal of full employment while 8 to 11 are those concerned with SEWA’s goal of self reliance. However each of these are interconnected to each other. In 1998 "aagewan’s" suggested including education in the broadest sense as the eleventh question to be addressed by SEWA. We have included this as part of the member’s yardstick