10.
SEWA BHARAT
10.1 INTRODUCTION
The rapid progress made by SEWA in organising women
in Gujarat lead to a demand
for creation of similar organisations in other states too.
SEWA Bharat was thus set up in 1982 in response to this
demand. Its main aim is to facilitate the formation of new
member organisations across the country and to promote their
growth and development. SEWA Bharat is, therefore, a federation
of SEWA member organisations, with the mandate to highlight
issues concerning women working in the informal sector,
and to strengthen the capacity of the organisations that
serve the interests of these women. Presently nine such
SEWA member organisations are working in 35 districts of
seven states, and together they accounted for a total membership
over 7,00,000. SEWA Bharat is an
association of associations of the women labourers. It works
to bring the unorganised women together and help them raise
their voice at national level and also works for capacity
building of the members.
Supportive Services and Capacity Building
As described in its Mission Statement, SEWA Bharat’s mandate is to building and to strengthen developing
SEWA throughout India.
This occurs through the following activities:
i.
Acting as a
link among SEWA
ii.
Coordinating
and guiding the activities of existing SEWA
iii.
Coordinating
and guiding the process of establishing new SEWA
iv.
Training and workshops for members, leaders
and organisers
v.
Strengthening
and expanding micro finance services in all SEWA
Supportive services like savings and credit, health
care, child car, insurance, legal aid, capacity building
and communication services are important needs of poor women.
If women are to achieve their goals of full employment and
self-reliance, these services are essential. Recognising
the need for supportive services, SEWA has helped women
take a number of initiatives in organising these services
for themselves and their SEWA sisters. Many important lessons
have been learnt in the process of organising supportive
services. They provide these services in a decentralised
and affordable manner, at the doorsteps of workers. Further,
supportive services can be and are themselves a source of
self-employment. For example, midwives charge for their
services and crèche workers collect fees for taking care
of young children. Specific program areas being developed
include the following:
¡
Social Security
¡
Micro-finance
¡
Creating Markets
SEWA activities include Micro Finance, Social Security,
Housing, and Education, Creating market linkages all of
which are based on the 11 points of SEWA.
Objective
–
¡
Giving direction
to the formation of new organisations in SEWA.
¡
Increasing
the exchange of knowledge among various member associations
of SEWA.
¡
Help in raising
voice of women workers of the unorganised sector.
¡
To coordinate
the functioning of other member associations.
10.2 BUILDING CAPACITY OF VARIOUS ASSOCIATIONS OF SEWA
AND NEWLY BUILT ASSOCIATIONS.
¡
Short term
financial Programme – SEWA
Bharat plays an important role in strengthing
the short-term financial programmes undertaken by the member
associations. SEWA Bharat made efforts throughout the year
that their members should have the basic knowledge of financial
aspects, which would facilitate the members in financial
planning so that they make independent financial decisions.
¡
Action Plan
– SEWA Bharat with the help of Indian
School
of Micro Finance located at Ahmedabad
organised a workshop in which they were given training for
financial planning as well as they got guidance to plan
the activities of their associations.
¡
Management
Information System
– A workshop in Delhi
was organised in collaboration with M.Kril,
which is a rating company for micro finances having a mandate
to strengthen the short-term financial planning programmes.
This workshop helped in formulation of MIS for various member
associations.
¡
Training – After conducting the workshop it was
necessary to give the training of the same. Thus training
was organised in order to make the members well conversant
with the usage of the system.
¡
Anoosoya - It is the main newsletter of SEWA Bharat. Since
last 18 years it is continuously published. Its main publication
is Anoosoya Trust, which is situated at Bhopal. For the publication of Anoosoya, SEWA Bharat is continuously making efforts to make
it more interesting and every SEWA centres contribute a
lot towards this direction.
A joint effort of SEWA Bharat and international Labour
Organisation has been engaged in strengthing
women workers of unorganised sector. SEWA Bharat is operating
its programme in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.
Simultaneously ILO’s operations are in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Through
these programmes of SEWA Bharat the programme of Vimo
SEWA has been initiated in all services and whose data exists
in Vimo SEWA’s report.
SEWA Munger
¡
Health Plans
- Diagnostic camps/ Dai’s training and government programmes
like DOTS has been associated with SEWA Munger’s
Health plans.
| Activity |
Camps |
Number
Of Women |
| Diagnostic Camps |
30 |
1,505 |
| Awareness Camps |
4 |
825 |
| Dai Training |
3 |
55 |
|
DOTS Camps (T.B) |
1 |
17 |
¡
In this programme
health centres of SEWA – Gujarat,
provided continuous help.
¡
Organising
and Capacity building
- In
year 2004 SEWA Munger the membership base was 1265 and about 50 Aagewans Ben were provided Leaders training to SEWA Academy.
SEWA
Delhi
¡
SEWA Delhi
was initiated in the year 1999. Its main purpose is to create
self-employment for the poor women of the un-organised sector,
undertaking micro-finance programme also linking the women
with the government led programme for the development and
upbringing of the unorganised poor women.
¡
Exhibitions - An exhibition was organised by SEWA
Bharat in 2004 at Delhi,
Aghakhan Hall, Delhi Haat
and Indore. Under the umbrella of SEWA workers festival
there was display of all the products produced by SEWA members.
¡
Employment - This year in Rajguru College
under Delhi University SEWA Canteen was initiated, under
which three women members got employed and besides these
five women members were trained to make hand product products
in Miranda
House College.
Through an export company order to make wedding and greeting
cards to 20 women members and Rs.
5,360 were generated as income from this order.
¡
Short-term
finance programme
- Under the premises of short tem finance programme different
finance programme as saving groups and insurance work had
been taken up.
| Area |
Total Group’s |
Total Members |
Total Savings |
Creditors |
Balance Amount |
| Puri |
4 |
110 |
5,66,000 |
3,80,090 |
20,090 |
| R.N |
2 |
12 |
38,030 |
40,000 |
20,500 |
| S.N |
14 |
147 |
2,57,700 |
3,17,000 |
79,250 |
¡
Insurance - in year 2004 about 203women & men
members were insured, under which 3 were accepted out of
which 3 were rejected and about 3 cases are under process.
In this seven mediclaim were recorded
and two-house claim out of which 1 was accepted and one
was rejected.
¡
Organization
& development work -
In Jhangirpuri area of Delhi the membership was allotted to 125 members
and in Raghubir Nagar about 510
and 212 memberships were allotted in Sundar
Nagar. Total number was 847.
¡
SEWA Education/Shikshan
Centre - This centre this is under operation in Sunder Nagar
and Raghubir Nagar of Delhi where 65 children were enrolled.
SEWA Bikaner
¡
Short term
finance programme, by the end of the year there are about
28 groups who have been regularised and opened their accounts
in the bank and five groups are in their initial stage of
organisation which will be associated with banks in the
coming days.
| Number Of Groups |
Number Of Members |
Total
Savings |
Total Loan |
Balance |
| 28 |
316 |
2,64,637 |
3,53,600 |
1,70,799 |
¡
Vimo SEWA - 141 women workers adopted membership by the end of the year.
¡
Capacity Building - There are 500 women workers till 2004. And besides
this managerial training under short term finance programme
was imparted twice to Aagewans
of 17 groups.
¡
Education
Programme
- To educate women workers 1 informal education centre was
co-ordinated.
SEWA Murshidabad
Murshidabad
is situated in western Bengal
where most of the members are Bidi
roller workers. There was proposal form Bengal
government labour ministry that SEWA should work for Bidi
workers residing in this district. Earlier the facilities
that were provided by government were not allotted to these
workers, and then SEWA Bharat through SEWA Academy
initiated a study in Murshidabad.
Through this study the data recorded was that about seven
lakh Bidi rollers work here and specifically the condition of women
workers are miserable. Due to SEWA’s
expended experience of working with Bidi
workers with the advice of other member organisations has
initiated to work in new areas.
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