TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Overview 2
2. Starting NEW SEWAs 3
3. About SEWA Bharat 3
4. Members of SEWA Bharat 4
5. SEWA Bharat Programme Themes 5 5.1 Livelihoods and Market Linkages 5 5.2 Microfinance 6 5.3 Organizing and Advocacy 7 5.4 Health and Social Security 9 5.5 Skill building, Education, and Vocational Training 10
6. Strengthening Existing SEWAs 11 6.1 SEWA Munger 11 6.2 SEWA Bhagalpur 14 6.3 SEWA Delhi 16
7. Development of New SEWAs 21 7.1 SEWA in West Bengal 21 7.2 SEWA in Bareilly 25 7.3 SEWA in Uttarakhand 26 7.4 SEWA in Katihar 30 7.5 SEWA in Rajasthan 34
8. Research Studies 37 8.1 Direct Cash Transfer Study: SEWA Delhi 37 8.2 Bihar Task Force: Social determinants of healthcare 38 8.3 Madhya Pradesh: Unconditional cash transfer project 38
9. Key Achievements 2012: Established SEWAs 40 9.1 SEWA in Gujarat 40 9.2 SEWA in Madhya Pradesh 40 9.3 SEWA in Kerala 41
10. Collaborative Sister Organizations 42 10.1 SEWA Bank 42 10.2 SEWA Academy 42 10.3 SEWA Trade Facilitation Centre and Graam Haat 42 10.4 Lok Swasthy Mandali 43 10.5 Vimo SEWA 43 10.6 Mahila SEWA Housing Trust 43
11. Board Members 44
12. Our Partners 44
13. Honours for Smt. Elaben Bhatt 45
14. SEWA Bharat Activity Photos 46 1. OVERVIEW
was born out of the Textile Labour Association (TLA), India’s oldest and largest union of textile workers founded in 1920 by a woman named Anasuya Sarabhai. The union drew its inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi, who led a successful strike of textile workers in 1917. In 1954, the Women’s Wing of TLA was created to assist women who belonged to the households of mill workers. Its work was largely focused on imparting training and undertaking welfare activities. The scope of the Women's Wing expanded in the early 1970s when a survey was conducted to delve into the complaints of women workers. The survey revealed that a large number of women’s issues were untouched by unionization, government legislation and policies. In 1971, when Mrs. Ela Bhatt was the head of the Women’s Wing of TLA, some migrant women cart-pullers came to her office with the hope that the TLA would be able to help them find some housing. At the time, these women were living on the streets without shelter. Hearing their request, Elaben went with them to their places of work and shelter, and met more women working as head- loaders. In one of the meetings that followed, a woman from the crowd suggested that they form an association of their own. Thus, SEWA was born, on an appeal from the women and through the initiative of Elaben. The women also felt that, though it was a workers’ association, SEWA should establish itself as a trade union. The first struggle that SEWA undertook was to obtain official recognition as a trade union. As these women had no recognized employer, the workers had no one to raise their demands against. SEWA argued that a union was not necessarily against an employer, but worked for the unity of the workers.
SEWA is a confluence of three movements—of women, labour, and cooperative. In the 1970s, women’s movements took a radical turn with women participating actively in social movements and demanding equal opportunity in all spheres of life. In this context, SEWA was born out of the labour movement from the idea that like salaried employees, the self-employed workers too have a right to fair wages, decent working conditions and protective labour laws. Using the cooperative approach, SEWA develops alternative economic systems wherein the workers themselves control their means of production.
In 1977, Elaben won the Magsaysay Award, which brought nationwide recognition to SEWA. This was a time when the women’s movement had become active in India and worldwide and, to observers, SEWA was a unique model that not only improved the income-earning capacity of its members, but also addressed the issue of women’s empowerment through a compelling Gandhian framework. From its very inception, it was clear to SEWA that just like in any other union, solidarity between workers in a common trade was the foundation of its strength. Taken to its logical conclusion, the ‘organized strength’ of SEWA required national support to be effective. Without this, if SEWA organized bidi rollers in the state of Gujarat and negotiated for higher minimum wages, production could simply move to other states in which the women were not organized. By its very nature, therefore, the SEWA mission implied that all women workers in the informal sector were potential SEWA members.
The year 2012 marked the successful completion of 40 years of the SEWA movement. Over the last four decades, SEWA has added more than 16 lakh dues-paying members in ten states of India. Responding to the needs of its members, SEWA evolved a developmental approach, along with the labour union rights-based struggles, laying the foundation for innumerable member-based organizations (MBOs) to create a family of SEWA organizations to facilitate the provision of finance, access to markets, training, research, healthcare, childcare, and housing for its members.
“It is the women who are the leaders in change.” - Smt. Elaben Bhatt, Founder, Self-Employed Women’s Association
2 2. STARTING NEW SEWAs
In 1980, Mr. Radhakrishna, the head of the Gandhi Peace Foundation (GPF), approached Elaben and asked her to collaborate to form new organizations using the SEWA model in the states where the GPF was active. A team led by Mrs. Renana Jhabvala visited the GPF centres in five states and found great enthusiasm among the local women for starting new SEWA organizations. The core values that were imbibed as parameters for any SEWA were: Women always at the centre; Poor women as leaders of their own programmes; Programmes centered around work; and Commitment to non-violence.
Between 1981 and 1985, eleven new SEWA organizations were created, resulting in a national presence for SEWA, from Jammu and Kashmir to Kerala. Since all the SEWAs were locally rooted, each of them grew in its own way. Some took up trade union activities, others formed cooperatives, and yet others focused more on the provision of social security. However, of the eleven SEWAs founded between 1981 and 1985, only five were in a strong, independent position by the mid-1990s. Disturbed conditions and violence in some states forced a decrease in their activities and, in some cases, even a complete cessation. In Jammu and Kashmir, SEWA had to shut shop after warnings from extremists. In Munger, a child of one of the SEWA organizers was kidnapped, while in Bhagalpur, it became more and more dangerous for organizers to go into rural areas. Other SEWAs such as SEWA Jamshedpur, SEWA Delhi, SEWA Mithila and SEWA Ambala closed down when the founders moved away, died or got involved in other activities. During this period, SEWA Bharat was established as a sisterhood wherein the leaders of the different SEWAs met and gained strength from each other. At the same time, SEWA Bharat organized national events such as exhibitions to display and market the products of its members.
3. ABOUT SEWA BHARAT
In order to coordinate the expanded SEWA movement, in 1984, SEWA built on the already occurring GPF–SEWA meetings to form SEWA Bharat, the federation of Indian SEWA organizations. Every SEWA all over India became a member of SEWA Bharat. The SEWA Bharat programme aims to capture the strengths and to address the challenges of the geographical expansion of the SEWA movement. Thus, SEWA Bharat is active along dimensions that roughly align with the following stages of the ‘life’ of the different SEWA member organizations.
Strengthening smaller SEWAs: For smaller or less developed SEWAs, SEWA Bharat helps plan and execute new programmes. The goal is to create a foundation for future growth as an independent organization with a strong membership base, capable staff/grassroots leadership, and sustainable programmes and activities. For example, SEWA Bharat works closely with SEWA Bhagalpur to help it develop its staff capacity to undertake micro-finance and silk production. Similarly, SEWA Bharat has linked SEWA Munger for marketing agarbattis (incense sticks) to the multinational corporation ITC, and has helped it form a producers’ cooperative and a company for rolling and scenting the incense sticks.
Development of new SEWAs: SEWA Bharat has taken over the role previously played by the SEWA Gujarat Spearhead Teams that travelled through India in the early 1980s. After being approached by an interested stakeholder (who may be a local leader or potential partner), SEWA Bharat investigates the potential for setting up a new SEWA organization through a survey of livelihoods and women’s concerns, as well as experience sharing between women from the existing SEWAs who are engaged in related trades. After obtaining approval from the SEWA Bharat Executive Committee and consensus on the initial project to be implemented, a new SEWA is formed. However, it is not an independently constituted organization, nor a SEWA Bharat member organization with elected representation, until the local leadership is ready to run the organization. Rather, it continues functioning under the direction of SEWA Bharat, which provides monitoring or implementation resources as
3 needed. Currently, new SEWAs are being developed in Rajasthan in Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Bikaner districts, in Murshidabad, West Bengal, in Katihar, Bihar, and most recently, in Almora and Dehradun districts of Uttarakhand.
Facilitating linkages for and between SEWAs: SEWA Bharat helps each SEWA to better serve its membership through linking with new services, obtaining expertise, linking with government programmes and identifying growth opportunities for various SEWAs. For example, SEWA Bharat has helped its members get services through VIMO SEWA, one of the services from Gujarat. It has helped SEWAs develop their expertise in micro-finance by linking up with SEWA Bank and also established links with government programmes and policies, such as the ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) schemes of the Health Ministry, rural development schemes, and schemes for home workers, street vendors and construction workers. An important role played by SEWA Bharat is to enable SEWAs to help and link up with each other. For example, SEWA Gujarat and Swashrayee Mahila Sewa Sangh have been sending their teams to newly developing SEWAs such as in Murshidabad and Rajasthan. Swashrayee Mahila Sewa Sangh, Madhya Pradesh, has transferred the Shramik Mahotsavs or ‘Workers’ Celebrations’ to each SEWA. The SEWA Academy conducts regular training programmes for SEWA Bharat leaders and members.
Building a national identity and advocating at the national level: The first concern of SEWA Bharat has been to build a national identity for SEWA. It achieves this through frequent meetings of the multi-state board of SEWA; continuous exposure and training programmes for leaders from each SEWA and, most effectively, through Shramik Mahotsavs, wherein women from all the SEWAs come together and get to know each other, by talking, playing games, and dancing and singing together. An important national identity for SEWA members emerges from the newsmagazine Anasuya published from Bhopal. However, the most effective link is established by building a common ideology, common programmes and common values. At the same time, SEWA Bharat supports advocacy at the national level.
4. MEMBERS OF SEWA BHARAT
The following organisations are the registered members of SEWA Bharat as of 2012: SEWA Ahmedabad, SEWA Madhya Pradesh, Lucknow Mahila SEWA Trust, SEWA Kerala, SEWA Chhattarpur, SEWA Munger, SEWA Bhagalpur, SEWA Delhi Trust, Anusuya Trust, Gujarat Mahila Housing Trust, SEWA Madhya Pradesh
SEWA TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP
LOCATION NO. OF MEMBERS IN 2012 Gujarat 9,19,912 Madhya Pradesh 5,50,640 Uttar Pradesh 15,100 Kerala 7,000 Delhi 35,025 Rajasthan 19,186 Bihar 75, 200 West Bengal 3,544 Uttarakhand 4,718 TOTAL 16,30,325 Table 1: State-wise SEWA Trade Union Membership
4 5. SEWA BHARAT PROGRAMME THEMES
In the pursuit of SEWA's goals of full employment and self reliance is a need was recognized for supportive services like savings and credit, health care, child care, insurance, legal aid, and capacity building. 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 through the establishment of models that provide services in a decentralised, affordable manner at the doorsteps of workers. Often these models are livelihood generating as well. SEWA Bharat supports projects across India that fall under five broad development areas, including: 1. Livelihood and Market Linkage Generations 2. Organising and Advocacy 3. Micro-Finance 4. Health and Social Security 5. Skill Building, Education, and Vocational Training
5.1 Livelihoods and Market Linkages The means of earning a livelihood form the very basis of a person’s survival. In the case of poor women workers, their opportunities for work are scarce and they are vulnerable to exploitation. SEWA Bharat firmly believes in the principle of fair and just employment and thus strives to generate opportunities for its members to use their skills to interact directly with the market. By organising members into collectives, SEWA shows them the door to the mainstream economy. Through these worker run and owned groups, SEWA's members can bypass the exploitative middlemen that they usually depend on for work. The collective can take their own product and skills to market and therefore negotiate their own wages and work conditions. In order to ensure that these collectives continue to be competitive in the market, SEWA Bharat offers meticulously designed skill up gradation and training programmes to keep the products current and the management strong.
The interventions that SEWA Bharat have thus far made are extremely intrinsic and local in nature. For instance, in Delhi it was seen that a sizeable number of the women’s population residing in the cluster areas of Rajiv Nagar and Sundernagri were well-versed with the craft of home-based embroidery. Similarly, Bhagalpur is colloquially known as the ‘Silk City’. Hence, in these areas, SEWA Bharat began engaging with families involved in silk weaving (revenue generated by SEWA Bharat established collectives shown in Table 2).
LIVELIHOOD GENERATION REVENUE IN 2012 Location Project 2012 Revenue KATIHAR Swacch Katihar, Swasthya Katihar Rs. 48,27,768 MUNGER Agarbatti rollers Rs. 6,98,055 BHAGALPUR Silk weavers Rs. 2,48,370 DELHI Home-based embroidery workers Rs. 27,37,856 Table 2: SEWA Bharat supported Livelihood Generation Revenue (2012)
LIVELIHOOD CASE STUDY : Delhi Home-based embroidery workers
Women weavers and artisans who possess the skill of embroidery work add value to clothing. Both domestic and international customers deeply recognise their skills. Fareedaben has been involved in the embroidery trade for many years. However, all she had to show for years of haggling with middlemen for work day in and day out were low wages and delayed payment. Then at a mohalla (neighborhood) meeting, she learnt about the SEWA’s home- based embroidery programme. Now, by being a part of this programme, she feels that she is able to better fend for herself, earn for her children and ensure that she saves for the future. With stable income and timely payments, she has gained confidence over the years and has started acknowledging her own skill as ‘work’.
“Being in SEWA means I get 100 per cent more than the contractor for the same work. I get work and money on time from the SEWA centre, which is our own centre. I am happier now,” - Fareedaben
5 5.2 Microfinance The origin of microfinance in India can be traced back to SEWA in 1974 when the Shri Mahila SEWA Sahakari Bank was registered in Gujarat to serve the financial needs of women in the informal sector. SEWA believes that poor women not only want to save but also are also capable of saving, and will do so when given safe, secure and accessible places. SEWA also understands that poor families often need lump sum amounts to meet the various financial challenges they encounter in the course of their life cycles. These lump sums must come from small collective savings, which constitute their only reliable source of funds. Hence one of the primary principles of SEWA’s micro-finance programme, which makes it different from other commercial microfinance programmes, is that ‘the poor women need to save, however small the amount may be’ (Figure 1).
Figure 1: SEWA Bharat has promoted three models of financial inclusion programmes, which have been generated as per the financial needs of the members. These are: Self-help Groups (SHGs), Thrift and Credit Cooperatives and the Business Correspondence model.
STRUCTURE OF FINANCIAL INCLUSION PROGRAMME IN SEWA
CO-OPERATIVE THRIFT AND SHG MODEL BANK CREDIT BUSINESS CO-OPERATIVE CORRESPONDENT SOCIETIES BIHAR,WEST AHMEDABAD 11 RURAL BENGAL,RAJASTHAN, UTTARAKHAND DISTRICT UTTARAKHAND,UP & ASSOCIATIONS MP, DELHI, SURAT, BARODA, KERALA CHATTARPUR AND BIHAR
SEWA Bharat has been successfully facilitating the formation of SHGs, nurturing them and linking them to banks in most of the states it works in. In this model, Women are trained to run their SHGs, maintain their records, meet bank officials, and make important decisions. Where the need for savings and credit has outgrown the SHG structure, a Thrift and Credit Cooperative society is registered, as in Delhi. Consequently, community women not only have access to financial services from their own institutions, but also receive financial literacy training. In Bihar, the women members’ demand to have their own institution has led to the registration of another state level thrift and credit cooperative society. These societies have collective savings, smarter loan and savings products that are especially suitable for women, offer hassle-free documentation for application, and are equipped to provide larger and appropriate loans to the women.
SEWA Bharat has directly been associated in implementing the Financial Inclusion mandate of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) by partnering with the State Bank of India (SBI) as a Business Correspondent in Uttarakhand. It has not only opened bank accounts by using mobile-based technology in the rural and hilly terrain but has also helped in the Electronic Benefit Transfer of various government schemes like old age pension, pension for the handicapped, and widow pension. A cadre of community women provides the entire service at the doorstep.
During the year 2012, 89 new SHGs were formed and 2,582 new members joined the Cooperative and/or SHG. During the year, members also contributed a total of Rs 1.47 crores towards savings. The Delhi and Bihar Cooperatives have generated an additional Rs. 43.51 lakhs in share capital.
6 POSITION of BC MODEL, UTTARAKHAND Total No. Savings No. RD No. Fixed Fixed No. No Loan POS Savings
Accounts Accounts Deposit Deposit Frill No. Amount Transact- mobilised Opened Opened Accounts Amount (Rs) Accounts Loans (Rs) ions (Rs) Total 4,765 284 535 3,19,49,259 9,788 222 1,69,33,500 2,91,051 3,67,23,944 New in 2012 1,706 91 156 1,07,37,200 3,571 104 73,33,000 2,14,085 1,15,87,560 Table 3: The cumulative and ‘during-the-year’ position of the BC programme in Uttarakhand
SEWA BHARAT COMMUNITY WOMEN-LED MICROFINANCE (CWMF) PORTFOLIO 2012
Delhi Munger Bhagalpur Katihar Murshidabad Uttarakhand Bikaner Bareilly TOTAL
No. SHGs n/a 287 141 41 122 116 156 38 901
No. 5,472 3,776 1,659 457 1,321 1,019 2,311 393 16,408 Members
Total 2,23,06,744 97,59,166 24,83,114 4,95,015 29,00,880 24,40,760 82,19,007 6,41,435 4,92,46,121 Savings Loan Outstand- 1,66,77,495 57,81,342 15,13,372 1,21,293 44,80,832 11,48,547 20,78,670 3,14,310 3,21,15,861 ing (Rs) Share Capital 39,30,700 39,900 7,700 14,900 n/a n/a n/a n/a 39,93,200 (Rs) Table 4: SEWA Bharat Community Women-led Microfinance (CWMF) portfolio 2012
5.3 Organising and Advocacy SEWA Bharat supports women workers in the informal economy and helps them organise for their rights and empowerment whilst increasingly seeking to fulfill their needs. While working closely with these women at the grassroots level, SEWA Bharat also attempts to understand the issues from the members’ point of view.
SEWA Bharat’s advocacy campaigns impact policy through drafting and passing new laws, or amending existing laws for the protection of workers to demanding implementation at the local level. The campaigns enhance the existing safety measures for women to ensuring implementation of the minimum wage list in the local context. Advocacy campaigns are the result of persistent constructive discussions with the target group in question, in-depth surveys and analysis, and the exploration of possible interventions and benefits they stand to bring. Through its rigorous advocacy campaigns, SEWA Bharat aims to improve the existing living conditions of workers engaged in the informal economy with the ultimate aim of ensuring that they are not overlooked and are accounted for in key policy frameworks. Various advocacy campaigns taken up by SEWA Bharat for domestic workers, construction workers, street vendors, papad rollers, agarbatti rollers and bidi rollers have yielded highly fruitful results.
ADVOCACY CAMPAIGN HIGHLIGHT 1: Domestic Workers Domestic workers are some of the most vulnerable women in the informal economy. As they work in the private space of peoples’ homes, work is isolating and women often endure verbal and even sexual abuse. Furthermore, domestic workers usually cater to a number of different homes in a single day. It is only through juggling multiple households that they can earn a meager average monthly income of Rs. 2,000 – 5,000. With limited time and resources, these women often do not have access to social security schemes offered by the government. In order to better unionise domestic workers, SEWA Delhi facilitated 1,500 women to gain access to identity proof in 2012. With SEWA Bharat-verified ID cards, domestic workers were able to avail government schemes and enroll their children in schools.
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ADVOCACY CAMPAIGN HIGHLIGHT 2: Street Vendors SEWA is striving for the introduction of an Act guaranteeing that would protect their rights. Currently no provisions exist for street vendors in the city or town plan, and most vendors are denied the issuance of licenses, thereby making their trade illegal. The Supreme Court had, however, ruled that street vending is a fundamental right. Therefore, the passage of such an act would change the social image of the street vendors by recognizing them as an integral and valuable part of city life.
ADVOCACY CASE STUDY: Construction worker campaign
Premben resides in the Anand Vihar area of North- east Delhi, where SEWA has been working for more than four years. Premben hails from the Jhansi district of Uttar Pradesh, where her entire childhood was spent enduring many hardships. Both her parents were obstructed by physical impairments: her father being visually challenged, and her mother suffering from deformity in her hands. Hence, as one of the elder siblings amongst five children, the responsibility of providing financial support to her family fell on her shoulders at an extremely young age. Both she and her older sister worked in the village, digging wells and doing other unskilled jobs.
Premben got married at the young age of 14, and came to Delhi a year later with her husband. Her life in Delhi too was marked by many difficulties. For instance, when she was visiting her village to meet her family a few years back, the entire slum establishment in which she was residing in Delhi was demolished by the municipal authorities, which resulted in heavy financial losses for her family.
Both Premben and her husband are employed as construction workers. Her husband works as a mason, while she is a head-loader. Both of them have been registered by SEWA with the Construction Workers’ Welfare Board, which not only provides them a legal identity, but also entitles them to social and economic security benefits such as compensation in case of an accident, scholarships for their children’s education, a loan to purchase tools, and maternity benefit to the women workers, among other things.
“It feels good to know that this city and the Government are realizing that it is we (the construction workers) who sweat to make the city shine. At last, with your organization’s help, we are getting our lost identities back,” says Premben.
8 5.4 Health and Social Security SEWA members and their families belong to the lowest socio-economic bracket and live and work in high-risk environments that often lack water and sanitation facilities. Thus they often suffer from poor health, and ultimately reduced life spans. The high cost of healthcare prevents them from seeking immediate treatment, which only makes conditions worse. Poor health results in lost wages and healthcare expenditures lead to indebtedness, loss of assets and further poverty. While many excellent policies offer free or subsidized treatment and benefits for impoverished families, the implementation of these schemes is poor. Therefore, women are forced to seek costly private care.
SEWA Bharat tackles poor health by adopting an integrated approach as illustrated in the table below. It provides members with opportunities for economic security through livelihood and microfinance programmes. By improving earning capacity, members and their families can directly better their nutritional status. SEWA provides healthcare and social security within the community through awareness sessions, health camps, and projects on sanitation. Local community health workers constitute the cornerstone of SEWA’s health programme. Known as ‘saathis’, the SEWA health workers serve the entire community and work to organize SEWA members in their villages and neighbourhoods. They are educators, service providers and advocates.
Awareness Meetings Community health workers ‘saathis’ provide health awareness, reveal issues facing communities and determine linkages to be made. Referrals and Health Camps Government Scheme Linkages By creating associations with SEWA connects people to government officials at all levels government schemes and helps and service providers (i.e. doctors,
them address their health needs counselors, and laboratory staff), Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana through form filling, submitting, and SEWA facilitates training and free government liaising etc. Saathis identify departments responsible for the RSBY scheme and works with health camps in communities. them to inform communities about eligibility, requirements and enrolment periods. Water, Drainage and Sanitation Reproductive and Sexual Health SEWA runs awareness sessions on SEWA connects with female waste disposal, supports community SEWA Health Program gynecologists in rural areas, and cleaning drives, and advocates to the links women with clinics and government for clean drinking water hospitals for free cervical cancer and a safe environment. Integrated Approach screening, raises youth awareness.
Improving earning capacity => improving nutritional status Improving housing and sanitation => reducing health threats in living and work environment
Joint Advocacy Occupational Health Advocacy SEWA runs jan sunawais or social security camps to bring Each occupation has hazards, SEWA runs eye camps for together hundreds of members on issues of water, embroidery workers, connects agarbatti workers with health grants, and connects workers with protective sanitation, health and livelihood. equipment.
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Some of these initial projects have turned into legitimate organisations. Set up in 2011, the SEWA Delhi Polytechnic offers underprivileged girls and young women diverse courses that aim to build their confidence and provide them with skills relevant to the market. These courses are offered at a marginal fee in order to be self- sustaining but also be widely accessible. The SEWA Delhi Polytechnic has a ‘Placement Cell’ that focuses on connecting SEWA girls and youth residing in the local community with real-life internships or employment opportunities. The Placement Cell hosts in-house talks and interviews for internships, and aims at 100% placement in meaningful employment for young people. In 2012, 176 students got jobs in export houses, beauty parlours, and telecommunication agencies.
6. STRENGTHENING EXISTING SEWAs
6.1 SEWA MUNGER
Classified as a backward region, Munger in Bihar is characterized by rampant gender Membership till discrimination, which renders its women residents highly vulnerable. With poor health, low level of education and lack of access to technology, vocational training and credit facilities, December 2012: the women in Munger comprise the most deprived of the poor.
SEWA started its operations in Munger in 1982 with some local members of Block Haveli 27,300 Kharagpur. SEWA Munger was founded by Vidyaben under the guidance of Elaben and the Gandhian philosopher, Acharya Rammurti, in July, 1982. The registration of the SEWA Centre in Munger was effected in August of 1983 under the Societies Registration Act 1860 (21). Since its inception, SEWA Munger has been deeply involved in such development activities as employment generation, imparting of capacity-building training, non-formal education, health education, and the disbursement of micro-finance in 241 villages across five blocks of Munger district.
SEWA MUNGER ONGOING PROGRAMMES
MUNGER LIVELIHOOD SUPPORT and EMPLOYMENT GENERATION One of the key objectives promoted by SEWA Munger in its endeavours towards the elimination of poverty is employment generation. In March 2004, vermicomposting and spice production were selected as income generation activities but they lacked a dedicated market and hence were not especially successful. This prompted SEWA Bharat to explore interventions that have good market linkages and the potential for up scaling. The first such collaboration was with ITC for the production of raw, unscented agarbattis.
AGARBATTI PRODUCTION: ITC flagged off its ‘Mission Sunehra Kal’ in Munger in partnership with BAIF Development Research Foundation and SEWA Bharat in 2003. The projects at Munger, which were the first of their kind in Bihar, aimed at creating opportunities for the gainful self-employment of women, especially those from disadvantaged sections of society, in order to ensure sustainable livelihoods and an improved quality of life.
VERMI-COMPOST PROMOTION: When this income generation activity began in 2005-06, it created a lot of enthusiasm. Initially, due to the lack of a comprehensive marketing strategy and the absence of a viable market, this activity did not prove to be a profitable venture for SEWA members. Subsequently, however, it has been financially fruitful for the members.
BRIDGING GAPS: SEWA SHRAM SUGANDHIT PRODUCER COMPANY LIMITED SEWA Munger has been working in the thematic areas of livelihood, capacity building, healthcare, micro-finance, and solar lighting. Initially, the women in Munger were engaged in income-generating activities like spice making, papad-making and tailoring. These did not prove to be successful in the long run. So in 2005, agarbatti rolling began as a means of livelihood generation. Women were trained in the activity with a focus on attaining quality standards. Gradually, this activity was disseminated throughout the area SEWA worked in, thereby providing women the
11 opportunity to earn a significant income. As a result of increasing Pedal Roll Production outputs, a cooperative called SEWA Udyogik Swawlambhi Sahakari Samiti Ltd. was formed, and registered in 2005 under The Bihar Parameters Number Self-supporting Cooperative Societies Act, 1996. Its main objective was to manage the agarbatti-rolling business to ensure Production 44,510 kg social and economic development, particularly for rural women. All the women producers, hub in-charges and extension workers Sale 22,514 kg are members of the cooperative. The women producers work at their own residences after managing their daily household Members 50 activities. The cooperative markets the agarbattis produced by its members to vendors based in Noida, Chandigarh, and Bangalore, Table 5: Pedal Roll Production (Financial yr .2012) apart from the local markets.
Hand Roll Production In 2009, the agarbatti production at the cooperative in Munger reached a peak whereby a medium was required to enhance the Parameters Number value of the product and hence it was decided to set up a scenting unit in Munger. This unit was formed as a producer Production 1,49,429 kg company called SEWA Shram Sugandhit Producer Company Limited Sale 1,44,085 kg under The Companies Act, 1956. Initially, ten staff members from the SEWA Munger unit joined hands as promoters of the Members 700 scenting unit. Thereafter, shares were issued in the name of the Total Profit Rs. 1,10295 company, not just to the promoters and staff members but also to the women producers involved in rolling the raw incensed Table 6: Hand Roll Production (Financial yr. 2012) sticks for the cooperative.
A major accomplishment of the company was the signing of an agreement between ITC SBU (which oversees the agarbatti business at ITC) and SEWA Bharat for producing agarbattis for ITC’s Mangaldeep brand. Per the agreement, the entire output of the company is sold to, and marketed by, ITC SBU. Commercial production at the company began in 2009. The two kinds of skills needed in agarbatti rolling and, consequently, the focus of training for women members are hand roll and use of the extruder machine.
The Hand Roll Skill: The members involved in hand rolling of agarbattis are women workers engaged in agricultural labour, animal husbandry or making of items from primary products. Since they do not have a steady income, they are keen to acquire new skills that can fetch a higher and more stable income. The SEWA members are, therefore, imparted training in agarbatti rolling by hand, which they undertake in their homes at their own discretion.
Various centres and hubs have been created to facilitate the process of training. Members are given raw materials and the final outputs produced by them are deposited at the centres, where the raw agarbattis are sorted as per various quality specifications.
Skill in the Use of the Extruder Machine: Extruder machines have been specifically created to generate incense sticks from machines by using the pedal technique (as seen in the accompanying picture). A total of 50 such machines were installed at the agarbatti production centre in Munger in September 2012. The use of the extruder machines has been found to significantly increase the productivity of members, allowing for each member to produce a maximum of 35 kilograms of agarbattis in one day.
12 SOLAR LIGHTS Inadequate rural lighting has always been an impediment to the development of rural families, as it hinders their economic activities while also adversely affecting their health and education. The situation with regard to the availability of power is much worse in Bihar than in any other state. The paucity of electric power supply in Munger forces people to depend on conventional sources of fuel such as kerosene, firewood and dung cakes that can depletes resources and also lead to poor health. The popular choices for lighting are kerosene lamps, dibiyas (earthen lamps) and, in rare cases, torches. Roughly an amount of Rs. 180 is spent every month to light one room. A few families that are better off can afford the use of generators, wherein lighting one bulb costs them Rs. 90/month. However, the use of generators has such major disadvantages as the limited timings of its supply, and the harm caused to the environment.
In this context, SEWA Bharat took up the initiative of meeting the basic lighting needs of the people in Munger by providing solar home light systems to rural households. Presently, solar home light systems have been installed in 157 households in the rural areas of Munger district. The technology provider SELCO undertook a need assessment of the households and suggested the most appropriate home light unit for them. The unit’s components include a solar panel, a module, an LED light and tabular battery. People in the area use mobile phones extensively and each household is estimated to spend about Rs. 80 per month to get their mobiles charged. The solar home light system also provides the option of charging of mobiles. The entire cost of the system has been borne by the households concerned. SEWA Bharat has facilitated the installation of solar home light systems through the two following models: Self help group model and financing through the Grameen bank.
THE SELF-HELP GROUP MODEL Since bearing the entire cost of a solar home light is beyond the reach of poor rural households, SEWA Bharat developed a mechanism to ensure that the households contribute towards the creation of durable assets in the form of solar home light systems that are, at the same time, easily affordable. The solar home light systems were purchased by SEWA Bharat on behalf of the Self-help Group (SHG) and installed in the households of SEWA members. The costs of the lights were broken down into equal installments. Every month the SHG members meet and deposit the installment money. At the end of the prescribed time, when all the installments have been paid, the household would have complete ownership over the lights. Currently, 57 households in the Jalsakra and Banbarsa blocks in Kharagpur are each paying Rs. 90 in monthly installments. They will own their systems in 48 months. In 2012, a total amount of Rs. 61,560 was collected from all the households towards payment for installation of solar home lights.
FINANCING THROUGH THE GRAMEEN BANK: Households in Munger are also getting linked to the ‘Capital-cum-Refinance scheme’ under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission implemented by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. Under this scheme, the households, either individually or as part of SHGs, can take loans from the local bank to install solar home light systems. If they meet the technical parameters stipulated by the ministry, a subsidy of Rs. 1080 per unit is provided by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). In 2012, a total of 136 households in rural Munger were linked to the scheme.
HEALTH Awareness camps were set up during the year to impart knowledge about primary healthcare, sanitation and communicable diseases. Such camps helped debunk myths and promote a healthier way of life. By December 2012, a total of 10,000 women had been made aware of various health issues and ways to prevent diseases.
Referral linkages were established with a primary health institution to gain access to affordable yet quality health services. Such referrals not only yield better healthcare but also build faith among SEWA members in the available medical services. In 2012, a total amount of Rs. 14,70,300 was saved through referrals.
13 SOCIAL SECURITY In order to provide its members with services to alleviate the problems that result from poverty and old age, SEWA Munger has linked them with the following government welfare schemes: 1424 families were linked to the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), a government scheme to provide protection to Below Poverty Line (BPL) households from financial liabilities arising from medical conditions like injuries and illnesses. The coverage of the scheme extends to five members of the family, including the head of the household, his/her spouse and up to three dependents. 70 birth certificate; 16 certificates of handicap; 10 Widow pension. 32 old age pensions; 112 caste / Residential proof; 9 death certificate.
SOLAR PROJECT CASE STUDY BHAGVATIYA DEVI Bhagvatiya Devi is the Treasurer of the Sarojini SHG and is also its Aagewan (leader). Her village, Bhavikura, is situated 4 km away from the main road, near the hills in Kharagpur. There is no electricity in the village and its resident’s resort to extensive use of kerosene instead. However, Bhagvatiyaben has installed a solar light both in her house as well as her shop. She reveals that members of all 60-70 households in her village come to her shop to buy goods. Since the village is far from the closest town, her shop plays a pivotal role in meeting the daily needs of the people. The most significant impact of Bhagvatiyaben’s business, however, emanates from the trust that she has been able to create among her customers.
She points out, “I use the solar light to do the calculation as well as weigh the goods before selling them to the customers. Since everything is done in bright light, the customers are able to see the weighing process and are, therefore, satisfied with what I am selling.” In addition to the work at the shop, her son also uses the light to study. After finishing his studies, he lets children from the neighboring houses study under the light as well and charges a minimal amount for the same! Further, the solar light has also brought about a reduction in the expense incurred on charging Bhavatiyaben’s mobile, which is now undertaken with the equipment attached to the home light.
6.2 SEWA Bhagalpur
Late Shri Kedar Prasad Chaurasia started SEWA Bhagalpur in 1983. Its areas of Membership till operations are Jagdishpur, Puraini, Nathnagar and Sabaur. Since its inception, SEWA Bhagalpur has been involved in the activities of unionizing women workers through December 2012: advocacy, livelihood promotion, economic empowerment, and safeguarding the health and social wellbeing of its members. 38,000 SEWA BHAGALPUR ONGOING PROGRAMMES
ORGANIZING SEWA Bhagalpur holds mohalla meetings to share SEWA’s message and given women the opportunity to voice their personal and community concerns. It is through these mohalla meetings that grass-roots leaders can ensure that SEWA’s programmes are meeting the needs of women. Furthermore, these mohalla meetings act as a space where local women can suggest and plan solutions to their issues. Often women do not have a space to do this, and thus mohalla meetings serve as an important platform to meet community needs. A total of 58 mohalla meetings were held with the participation of 1,274 women in Bhagalpur.
EMPLOYMENT GENERATION SEWA Bhagalpur has been consistently supporting the silk weaving industry in Bhagalpur with the objective of resurrecting its heritage and providing weavers a continuous and steady source of income. In Bhagalpur, SEWA has attempted to reach out to a maximum number of its silk weaver members, including approximately 100 families, and
14 • • •
MICROFINANCE SEWA’s experience in the field of micro-finance testifies to the need for developing the capacities of SHG members by imparting regular training to them in order that they can nurture a sense of ownership towards their groups and work together to strengthen it. The table below summarizes SEWA Bhagalpur’s 2012 achievements in microfinance.
S. NO MEASURABLE NUMBER/AMOUNT 1. Total number of SHGs created till December 2012 141 2. Total number of members till date 1659 3. Total amount of savings till date (in Rs.) 24,38,404 4. Total amount of outstanding loans (in Rs.) 15,13,372 Table 7: SEWA Bhagalpur microfinance achievements 2012
THRIFT AND CREDIT COOPERATIVE: SEWA in BIHAR The , a Thrift and Credit Cooperative was registered under the Cooperative Act, 1996, in February 2012 at the Bihar state level. The various districts included under the ambit of the cooperative include Munger, Bhagalpur, Katihar, Purniya and Khagadiya.
PARTICULARS MUNGER BHAGALPUR KATIHAR TOTAL Total Number of 236 138 116 490 Members Total Shareholders 301 170 125 596 Total Share Capital 39,900 7700 14,900 62,500 Table 8: Thrift and Credit Cooperative achievements 2012
HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY Often the poor have neither enough knowledge about diseases and disorders nor proper access to health facilities. In order to facilitate their access to health services, SEWA programmes link members to available government schemes, which help them avail medical treatment and consequently save money. With the aim of bridging this gap between its members and access to health facilities, SEWA Bhagalpur organized 120 health awareness sessions in 2012. These health awareness camps have a large outreach, in 2012 at least 3,241 women participated in these health awareness camps and were educated on common diseases and treatment. Additionally women participated in learning sessions related to women’s’ sexual health, gynecological needs, and reproductive health rights.
Often the process of seeking medical attention is a daunting task. Therefore, SEWA facilitates linkages between poor women and government hospitals through referrals. Importantly, these referrals help women save money on transport and private services.
6.3 SEWA DELHI
SEWA started its operations in Delhi in 1999 by organizing women vegetable vendors in Membership till Jahangirpuri. SEWA’s first initiative in the capital city was to form SHGs in the December 2012: community. Soon thereafter, street vendors from Raghubir Nagar voiced their grievance with regard to the lack of a proper space for selling their products. Apart from tackling these problems, SEWA also decided to address the issue of the rising number of school 35,025 dropouts among children of the SEWA members by establishing Education Centres for these children within the community.
Starting with one slum cluster, it is now working in six different parts of Delhi, including Jahangirpuri (North Delhi), Raghubir Nagar (West Delhi), Sundernagri (Northeast Delhi), Rajiv Nagar (Northeast Delhi), Anand Vihar (East Delhi), Mustafabad (Northeast Delhi) and New Ashok Nagar (East Delhi). SEWA Delhi was registered as a trust in 2007. That same year the SEWA Delhi Thrift and Credit Cooperative Society was also registered.
16 SEWA DELHI ONGOING PROGRAMMES For over a decade now, SEWA Delhi has been involved in the following campaigns and programmes to highlight the issues concerning women workers in the informal sector and to represent their concerns to policymakers at the national level.
LIVELIHOOD PROTECTION Ensuring that workers can engage in gainful employment entails working with street vendors to provide them with a permanent space and a legal identity, and with construction workers to provide them a legal identity, social security and the opportunity for skill upgrading through sustained advocacy.
ORGANIZING AND ADVOCACY: STREET VENDORS’ CAMPAIGN Street vending has always been a source of self-employment for the poor and destitute in the capital city. In fact, Delhi is home to a large number of poor people who are compelled to take to the streets in order to make their ends meet. During the period leading up to the Commonwealth Games in 2010, the government started a major ‘beautification drive’ entailing the removal of these street vendors, thereby rendering them jobless. Earlier, in January 2004, the government adopted a National Policy on Street Vendors, wherein only those possessing the designated licenses were allowed to vend their products without any hassle. In reality, however, street vendors have many harrowing tales of harassment to tell. The municipality stopped issuing licenses to vendors decades ago, thereby exposing all street vendors to the risk of extortion rackets. Despite facing these issues, however, the street vendors were unable to unite forces to seek relief from the government.
Meanwhile, SEWA has, since its inception, played a significant role in influencing policy level decisions. The National Policy for Urban Street Vendors was the outcome of the initiative taken by SEWA’s founder, Mrs. Ela Bhatt. She was nominated as a Member of Parliament (to the RajaSabah) by the President of India. She was also a member of the Planning Commission of India. In 1988, Elaben presented a resolution in the Rajya Sabha, demanding the formulation of a national policy for street vendors in India and thereby make them an integral part of urban policies and planning. She also suggested the implementation of appropriate measures for the protection of their existing livelihoods and for the provision of adequate space to sell their goods in urban areas. Similarly, Mrs. Renana Jhabvala, President of SEWA Bharat, has been advancing the struggle and cause of street vendors for many decades. It was due to SEWA’s efforts that a Task Force was set up to formulate a National Policy for Street Vendors. Mrs. Renana Jhabvala was a member of the Task Force as well as a member of the Drafting Committee of the National Policy, which fructified into the ‘National Policy for Urban Street Vendors, 2004’, published by the Department of Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation, under the Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, Government of India. SEWA Delhi has also made a significant contribution to the formulation and implementation of the Urban Street Vendors’ scheme in Delhi.
Through its initiatives, SEWA has developed old markets to improve the working conditions of these vendors, beautify markets, and ensure that street vendors get a legal identity through municipal authorities and face no further exploitation. Today, 6,000 street vendors, who are associated with SEWA, have access to a better quality of life.
CONSTRUCTION WORKERS’ CAMPAIGN The lives of many millions of construction workers are insecure and fraught with risk, hardship and vulnerability. They are also responsible for the rapid urbanization, and consequently, the skyscrapers that have been emerging overnight in Delhi.
The Commonwealth Games held in Delhi three years ago symbolizes just one part of the large construction boom hitting India. Amid this insecurity and vulnerability faced by construction workers, SEWA Delhi has been consistently working to unionize them, particularly the women, and to link them to the social security schemes introduced by the government.
The enactment of the Building and Other Construction Workers’ Act, 1996, was a major breakthrough in providing a legal framework for the social security of construction workers, who were otherwise being severely exploited by their employers and contractors. The 1996 Act created a Welfare Board, a worker registration process, and a cess fund that would free construction workers from depending on the goodwill of individual employers, instead linking
17 them directly to the Board for social security. Although the Delhi Building & Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Board (DBOCWWB) has thus far collected a handsome sum, no direct tangible fund, essential for improving the quality of workers’ lives, has been disbursed in the form of social and economic security benefits to them.
The Welfare Board has thus given SEWA the mandate to facilitate the registration of workers and to sign on their behalf for the issuance of their identity cards. This is in accordance with one of SEWA Delhi’s major objectives of registering as many workers as possible and ensuring their adequate representation on the Board so that they can avail of their rightful benefits.
2012 witnessed resumption of the registration of construction workers after unrelenting persistence on the part of SEWA Delhi in pursuing this issue.
LIVELIHOOD PROMOTION Ruaab SEWA is a means for home-based workers to generate income. Ruaab supports women with directly connecting to the market and also helps them access skill training in embroidery as well as alternative livelihoods.
SEWA identified a large number of home-based workers in the eastern part of Delhi who were engaged in embroidery and in making bindis, bangles and bed sheets. Most of them had migrated from various parts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in search of better livelihood opportunities. These women were mostly Muslims and almost all of them were skilled in embroidery work, a trait they had inherited from their families. A large concentration of the population in this area sourced the embroidery work from a chain of contractors and suppliers. These skilled workers worked on a piece-rate basis for contractors, who exploited them by paying them very low wages for their work. These contractors would invariably keep the lion’s share of the income and would hand over only a meagre amount to the actual workers.
The women belonged to an orthodox community wherein they had limited mobility and hence were compelled to take work from contractors. It therefore became imperative to empower these women to collectively demand their rights, including fair wages and access to markets for their products. Therefore, SEWA Delhi intervened to remove the chain of middlemen and directly link the women workers to production houses so that they could receive not only fair piece rates for their work but also recognition for their skill and effort.
SEWA is a member of the National Home Workers’ Group, promoted by the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), which in turn is a UK-based alliance of retailers, garment companies, trade unions and non-government companies formed to identify and promote best practices in the implementation of company codes of conduct on labour standards. The ETI aims to understand how to apply, implement and monitor the working conditions of home workers involved in international supply chains. SEWA was already engaged in the issues and concerns of embroidery workers living in the Sundernagri and Rajiv Nagar areas in Delhi before the ETI. Since SEWA came into contact with various international companies including Monsoon, GAP and NEXT during the ETI meeting, it was with the genuine and sincere support of these companies that SEWA members started receiving embroidery work at reasonable rates.
Besides making them economically stable, SEWA started organising these workers in order to give them strength through collectivization. Through these efforts, SEWA Bharat promoted a producer company named RUAAB SEWA Artisans Producer Company Limited in December, 2010 under Part IXA of The Companies Act, 1956. This company was constituted exclusively to conduct the business of embroidery work providing regular employment to these home-based workers. RUAAB SEWA is owned and managed by women producers and works through an embroidery centre model, ensuring an ethical and transparent supply chain. It has nine board members, six of whom are producers themselves, while two are SEWA representatives and one is an external member. At present, RUAAB SEWA has 188 shareholders.
“Through SEWA I could take vocational training and increase my monthly income. I never thought how happy it makes me to earn my own money and to be able to save money,” says Rubyben.
18 The structure of the company is given in Figure 5 below.
Board of directors
C.E.O
Designer Merchandiser Production Accounts Manager
Sampling Issue Receipt Center Incharge Supervisor Person
In-house Field Supervisor Sampling Team
Figure 5: Structure of RUAAB SEWA
Through this innovative model, SEWA not only facilitates employment of the women embroidery workers but also ensures the following: Payment of a higher level of wages to the women artisans; Prevention of exploitation of the workers by contractors/middlemen; and Lack of any involvement of child labour in the production work.
In an attempt to stabilize and strengthen production while targeting, and catering to, local markets, RUAAB SEWA initiated in-house production in March of 2012. Through sales during the year, RUAAB raised Rs. 73,891 for its products ranging from kurtis, bags, dupattas, salwars and skirts. The total production in Delhi during 2012 was worth Rs. 40,84,639, while a total amount of Rs. 27,37,856 was disbursed as payment to the home-based embroidery workers.
SKILL DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION SEWA has always believed in the importance of learning, underlining the fact that it is skill development and education that actually empowers women.
SEWA DELHI POLYTECHNIC Set up in 2011, the SEWA Delhi Polytechnic endeavors to impart education to poor and underprivileged girls and young women. The Polytechnic offers diversified courses aimed at providing such knowledge, skills and confidence as might facilitate income generation, in accordance with prevalent market trends. The underlying principle of the Polytechnic is that employment/self-employment raises the status of women in society and within their families. Skill building has emerged as a new thrust area for unorganized workers, enabling them to adapt to changing technologies and labour market demands. Thus, workers in unorganized sectors can achieve the right to work and other rights at the workplace, along with the right to organize, only if positive conditions are created and they are allowed space to grow. Most women possess the requisite skills but lack access to the channels of empowerment; as a result, their work remains invisible. Their increased participation in income-earning activities would, therefore, not only ensure a higher income for the family but also lead to a reduction in gender inequality. The Polytechnic develops mechanisms for providing students with a sustainable means of earning a livelihood via imparting sound knowledge in the fields of textiles, communication, alongside other modern and traditional skills.
19 A series of pilot activities has revealed that the Polytechnic also provides policymakers with an array of best practices and guidelines to promote the participation of underprivileged girls in technical and vocational education. The courses offered at the SEWA Delhi Polytechnic are technically supported by the Pearl Academy of Fashion, a leading institute for creativity and design. Other technical courses are conducted at the Polytechnic with short-term affiliations with renowned institutions. The Placement Cell of the Polytechnic conducts in-house talks and interviews for internships, and aims at offering assistance for ensuring 100% placement. In 2012, 176 erstwhile students of the Polytechnic were able to get jobs in export houses, beauty parlours and telecommunications agencies.
STATE BANK ACADEMY (SBA) SBA provides training to students for appearing in bank clerical examinations. The students are trained in three main subjects: Mathematics, English and Reasoning, while some classes in Marketing and General Knowledge are also held. These training sessions take place on every Saturday and are conducted by the SBA faculty. Regular tests are also held.
MICROFINANCE Since 1999, SEWA Delhi microfinance programme has enabled women to be financially included and independent. SEWA Delhi’s microfinance programme aims to ensure that members have access to savings and loans, particularly for working capital, and are prevented from exploitation by moneylenders. SEWA ensures that members gain access to savings and loans while also preventing their exploitation by moneylenders.
MAHILA SEWA URBAN COOPERATIVE AND THRIFT SOCIETY SEWA Delhi has worked tirelessly towards developing financial services that are suitable for urban, women slum dwellers. In the absence of education and lack of access to formal banking institutions, these low-income women are unable to enjoy any financial benefits. In order to address these issues, SEWA Delhi commenced its micro-finance programme in 1999. The first step was the formulation of Self-help Groups (SHGs) in various slum communities. At first, the membership numbers of SHGs were disappointing but over time these numbers increased. The women participating in this programme were quick to realize that if they could organize themselves into a cooperative, it would enable them to achieve greater goals, either for their business or during times of crises. Soon, they started accumulating savings proportional to their earning patterns and business volumes.
SEWA undertook the process of registering the Mahila SEWA Urban Cooperative Thrift and Credit Society, to ensure the financial inclusion and empowerment of poor self-employed women in February of 2007. The society has more than 200 members and a share capital of Rs. 1,08,000. The women members of the Society receive services from Bank Saathis (grassroots workers for the SEWA Cooperative Society) who go either door-to-door or to work areas in order to collect savings, loan payments and interest dues. Today this society is providing financial services to over 6000 women and had a share capital of approximately Rs. 40 lakh, and savings from members worth Rs. 2.2 crores by December 2012. Since its inception, 2940 loans, worth Rs. 5.8 crores, have been disbursed.
SEWA DELHI–MISSION CONVERGENCE: STRENGTHENING MICRO-FINANCE Since August 2011, SEWA Delhi has been partnering with the Mission Convergence department of the Government of Delhi to further strengthen its micro-finance programme. Mission Convergence was formed in order to bring together various social welfare schemes and services, with the ultimate objective of making entitlements reach the poor through a single-window system in a trouble-free manner. Financial inclusion is one of the focus areas of Mission Convergence. Thus far, the cooperative has extended its operations to 15 areas of Delhi and has been able to reach more than 6,, 000 women as members, while 7 500 women have been reached through the financial literacy campaigns.
The key deliverables of this alliance are: 1. Financial inclusion for 1 lakh women by 2016 2. Expansion of the programme to all districts of Delhi 3. Imparting financial literacy to members of the cooperative and/or community in order to empower them to make better financial decisions; and 4. Strengthening the operations and financial systems of the cooperative to ensure better service delivery and risk management.
20 SOCIAL SECURITY SEWA ensures social security for its members by creating linkages to government schemes, such as old age, disability and widowhood pensions for members.
GENDER RESOURCE CENTRE The Gender Resource Centre, also known as the Stree Shakti Kendra, is a Delhi Government-aided project that was started in April 2007 in the Sundernagri area of the Northeast district of Delhi. Through the GRC, SEWA provides solutions to all the problems and difficulties faced by the women in that area. Services offered to the members under this programme include healthcare, and legal, social and economic security through various activities.
INFORMATION CENTRE Dedicated centers have been set up to cater to the population in its area and to provide information on all government schemes, including pensions and other financial assistance schemes. Information Centres also dispense knowledge about different government programmes, addresses and contact numbers of government offices, hospitals, police stations, Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in Delhi, counselors and so on. The details of various government schemes that members have been linked to in Delhi are given in Table 9.
S. No GOVERNMENT SCHEMES No. LINKAGES MADE 1 Old age pension 103 2 Widow pension 57 3 Handicaps 21 4 Ladli scheme 117 Table 9: Details of Government Schemes in Delhi
7. DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SEWAS
7.1 SEWA in WEST BENGAL
In October 2004, SEWA Bharat carried out a short socio-economic survey among the Membership till bidi rollers of Murshidabad district in West Bengal. Soon thereafter, Block December 2012: Raghunathganj II was chosen for implementing programmes based on the local demands. SEWA's programme in West Bengal is concentrated in 72 villages of Murshidabad district, which is one of the 19 districts in the state. Murshidabad is 3,544 comprised of 26 community development blocks, 18 towns, and 2,220 villages. According to a research study commissioned by UNICEF, at least 30 per cent of the government’s tube wells have unsafe levels of arsenic.
The district ranks 4th in terms of both population size and sex ratio, 4th in terms of sex ratio, with the ranking of literacy rate at only 16 per cent, as compared to the other districts in Bengal (2011 Census). SEWA Bharat’s area of focus has expanded from one of the developmental blocks of Murshidabad, Raghunathganj Block II, to three more blocks: Raghunathganj I, Lalgola and Behrampur. Raghunathganj Block II has at least 200,000 persons spread across 98 villages with a government healthcare infrastructure of one block hospital, one primary healthcare centre and three sub-centres. SEWA Bharat has largely concentrated its work in the following four Gram Panchayats: Sanmatinagar, Teghari-I, Boroshimul and Jotekamal.
At the family level, these Gram Panchayats embody the socio-economic trend of men travelling to cities for work and the women and children being left behind to work in the informal sector of rolling bidis, which is the only viable form of livelihood for thousands of families. Child labour is rampant in this industry. Further, being unorganized,
21 the workers are reluctant to openly join any movement, fearing reprisal from the contractors and consequently, loss of their jobs and sole source of income.
At the onset, SEWA Bharat tried to understand the needs of the community. Some of its key findings included the high incidence of borrowing of money at high rates from local moneylenders, low literacy levels, and limited access enjoyed by the people to healthcare and social security benefits. Thereafter, SEWA Bharat started forming SHGs to address the financial needs of the people, and also to develop local leaders to generate awareness about the need for promoting healthcare in specific modules, and to raise demands for services from local bodies like Primary Health Centres (PHCs), hospitals, panchayats, and Block offices. Simultaneously, SEWA Bharat also started imparting alternate skill training to adolescent girls and young women.
ONGOING PROGRAMMES IN WEST BENGAL
WATER AND SANITATION Water-borne diseases like diarrhoea, and mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and dengue are greatly exacerbated by accumulated waste because it leads to pools of stagnant water. Young children have a proclivity for these potentially fatal diseases and hence access to proper sanitation and the availability of clean drinking water become dire necessities. Additionally, arsenic contamination is a significant problem due to the use of deep tube wells for water supply in the Ganges delta, causing serious arsenic poisoning to large numbers of people. The symptoms of arsenic poisoning are headaches, confusion, severe diarrhea, drowsiness, decrease in bone density, and eventually may result in coma or death. Arsenic is also related to heart diseases, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases and night blindness.
One of the exposure modalities for arsenic poisoning is drinking contaminated water. Hence, in order to steer clear of the hazards of arsenic poisoning, SEWA Bharat motivated the members for arsenic testing of their tube wells. SEWA Bharat has worked closely with the West Bengal Voluntary Health Association (WBVHA) to have samples tested for contamination. SEWA organized 8 meetings through Film screening on Arsenic issues within the community to spread awareness about the effects of arsenic contamination. In addition to this, 145 samples of water were sent for testing and 7 SONO water filters were installed to help curb the contamination.
LIVELIHOOD PROMOTION In order to generate employment and promote healthy alternative livelihoods, SEWA runs tailoring classes where students are taught to cut and stitch blouses, suits, petticoats and pajamas. Students can also take embroidery classes comprised of extensive training in various forms of embroidery, as well as soft toy making. During the year 2012, 140 students enrolled in the six-month tailoring classes.
MICROFINANCE SEWA Murshidabad’s microfinance programme is designed to make the women aware of the necessity of saving and how it can ensure the future of both the member herself as well as her family. Saving through SHGs also develops the spirit of organizing. Women access finance through the collective strength of the groups and also banks through Cash Credit linkages. The table below contains collated data on the SEWA members enrolled with the microfinance programme as on 31 December 2012.
S.NO MEASURABLE NUMBER/AMOUNT 1. Total number of SHGs till December 2012 122 2. Total number of members till date 1,321 3. Total amount of savings (Rs.) 29,00,880 4. Total amount of outstanding loans (Rs.) 44,80,832 5. CC-linked SHGs (No. 29)—CC loan outstanding (Rs.) 12,59,103 Table 10: Murshidabad microfinance programme achievements 2012
22 ORGANIZING AND ADVOCACY SEWA regularly organizes mohalla meetings to educate and inform people about its prevalent activities, its history, its aims and its ideologies. Such meetings are intended to promote mobilization and sensitization towards certain crucial issues among the inhabitants of the locales where they are held. In the year 2012, SEWA held 148 mohalla meetings. While listening to members, SEWA noticed that some of the bidi rollers complained that they were working without any identity cards while others did not understand the utility of such cards. Despite facing resistance initially, SEWA Bharat began mobilizing women around the issue and educating them about the fact that being an identity-card holder was part of their many rights. Through its own unfailing efforts, and with due support from the Bidi Labour Welfare Office in 2008, SEWA began ensuring that all bidi rollers received their identity cards.
This is a continuing effort and in 2012, 250 women were linked for the issue of bidi ID cards.
Photo: Beedi workers in West Bengal that have joined SEWA
HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY: In view of the utmost importance of safeguarding the health of its members, SEWA organizes camps to spread awareness on a spectrum of health issues and to impart relevant knowledge about the available bidi welfare schemes. The various issues addressed at the camp include cervical cancer, malaria, diarrhea, tuberculosis, and diabetes, among other serious illnesses. During the year 2012, as many as 1274 camps were held, covering a total of 7735 people. The aim of these awareness camps is not limited to imparting relevant information about the diseases but also encompasses the inculcation of a growing sense of well being among the members and their right to access public health facilities.
A Swasthya Mela (Health Fair) was held in January, which was attended by 450 women and other community members. The local panchayat members, health administrators and Accredited Social and Health Activists (ASHAs) also participated. The fair brought together diverse people including people through a wealth of activities that were led by the SEWA team, local panchayat members, ASHAs, Auxilliary Nurse Midwives (ANM), and local leaders.
23 This collaborative effort at the fair also entailed the organization of a variety of activities including:
Health quizzes by the SEWA team on ante-natal care (ANC), post natal care (PNX) and diarrhea; Lecture sessions by ANMs, ASHAs and panchayat members about various government schemes such as the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), old age pension, benefits of sterilization, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme), and meetings held to educate mothers and discuss various health-related issues with them. Maintenance of sanitation and garbage disposal; Organization of sports activities for women; Enactment of street plays; and Setting up of health stalls to disseminate information on health- related issues through the display of information and education communication material (IEC) materials and posters.
In addition to the above activities, SEWA also organized health camps, made referrals and conducted exposure visits for women during the year in various parts of the state. Twelve camps were held to detect cervical cancer, and 220 women underwent Pap smear tests. Referral linkages were also established with a primary health institution to help women gain access to affordable yet quality health services. Such referrals not only lead to better healthcare but also reinforce the faith of the SEWA members in the available medical services, as many as 444 referrals were made. Exposure visits were also organized for the health team of SEWA to enable members of this team to gain more knowledge about the serious health issues plaguing the state, and to be able to impart the same to its members. One such visit was to SATHEE Organization in the Nadia district of West Bengal.
LINKAGES WITH GOVERNMENT SCHEMES The focus of SEWA continues to remain on ensuring that all bidi rollers have an identity card through which they can gain access to the plethora of social welfare schemes that the government offers. Government schemes such as that of the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), the bidi welfare schemes, and those offering maternity benefits were promoted. During the year, 354 linkages with Government schemes have been made. Following constant liaising with the Government, and after a gap of nearly a year, 250 bidi ID cards were issued to the members this year.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION A baseline study was conducted during the year by an external consultant, and the planning and strategy for the year were developed on the basis of this report. Further, software for Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) was also implemented starting this year, thereby helping the team in planning and evaluating the programmes.
MEDIA COVERAGE The Annual Health Fair, a unique event organized by SEWA Bharat, generates a lot of interest among both the people and the media. Local media including the R+ television channel and the Pratibadh newspaper covered the event. Following are excerpts from a newspaper article on the event:
On 31st January, SEWA West Bengal had an annual sport and health fair at Sanmatinagar Sporting Club field. The chief guest was the Pradhan of the Panchayat of Sanmatinagar, Ainal Sheikh. He said that this particular organization has been doing very good work. He also mentioned that the field workers, through their work, have reached almost each and every household to do development work. They have formed SHGs and through these groups they have spread the developmental work all over [Sanmatinagar].
“Monjuri Bibi, who is also a field worker and SHG leader, shared her experience and mentioned that she is very happy to participate in this fair. She explained the various development initiatives that SEWA has undertaken. Even the general public present talked about SEWA's initiatives.”
24 7.2 SEWA in Bareilly
The Bareilly district in Uttar Pradesh is famous for its embellishment work. SEWA Membership by started its work in three areas: Mirdan mohalla (in Faridpur tehsil), Richolla Kifatullah (in December 2012: Nawabganj tehsil) and Bandiya (Ward No. 34). A study was conducted in these areas in 2007 to determine the socio-economic conditions of the families. It was found that home-based workers in Bareilly live in large families with an average family size of eight 3,899 people, and that 90 per cent of the families are Muslim, with the remaining families being Hindu. Although embellishment work has traditionally been a Muslim occupation, Hindu families have also learnt the trade due to their economic necessities.
ONGOING PROGRAMMES IN BAREILLY
VOCATIONAL TRAINING Vocational training aims to provide local women and girls with alternative employment opportunities other than that of zari work. Many girls have thus found employment after learning cutting and tailoring work. SEWA has also been conducting vocational training for women. 65 women enrolled for the very first training session. There was also demand among adolescent girls to be taught stitching. Hence, SEWA decided to find the requisite resources to provide such training, and to procure funds for the purchase of sewing machines, an estimated Rs. 24,000. SEWA got in touch with the then Mayor of Bareilly, Dr. Tomar and the Jan Shikshan Sansthan, which is a government chain that provides vocational training at the field level. SEWA staff members convinced the latter to impart training to the girls at a cost of only Rs. 10 per student. SEWA purchased five sewing machines to facilitate the initiation of the training in stitching in three areas. In 2012, 119 young girls were enrolled SEWA’s vocational training programme and 33 became established as self-employed.
EDUCATION AND CAPACITY BUILDING A socio-economic survey of embellishment workers, which was carried out in 2007, revealed that in the case of 20 per cent of the families who have never sent their children to school, the need to work is overwhelmingly the primary barrier. Faridpur is more progressive in terms of education as compared to the other two areas, as here most of the girls are enrolled in intermediate studies or are pursuing private graduation studies from Rohilkhand University. Bandiya, on the other hand, has a very low rate of education. Similarly, in Richolla Kifatullah village, approximately 60 per cent of the home-based workers are unable to send their children to primary school because the village is split down the middle by a busy highway. Many families have thus chosen not to send their children to primary school and have instead opted to provide tuitions from private teachers or to send their go to madarsas (Urdu learning schools). SEWA initiated a programme to promote education in these areas among women involved in embellishment work to make them literate and help them realize their true potential. Local girls are now enrolled in literacy classes wherein teachers administer written and oral tests, and students sit for examinations.
MICRO-FINANCE In Bareilly, most families depend on loans taken at high interest rates to meet their financial needs. Micro-finance is needed to facilitate saving and credit services that are tailored to satisfy the requirements of home-based workers. By establishing women’s SHGs SEWA facilitates savings as well as skill-building, income generation and promotion of awareness with regard to healthcare and education. In order to educate the women workers about the need for micro-finance, the importance of micro-finance was first discussed with the embellishment workers, which elicited mixed reactions.
S.NO MEASURABLE NUMBER/AMOUNT 1. Total number of SHGs till December 2012 15 2. Total number of members till date 162 3. Total amount of savings till date Rs. 24,52,279 4. Total amount of outstanding loans Rs. 3,67,600 Table 11: Bareilly Microfinance 2012 25 ORGANISING AND ADVOCACY SEWA functionaries conduct ideological training for members at various meetings. At these training sessions, a vivid picture is painted of SEWA’s background—its struggles, progress, developments and history are highlighted. The members are then made privy to the various operational activities conducted by SEWA Bareilly. Mohalla meetings are held at regular intervals to enable the SEWA workers to interact with local community members in order to understand the latter’s problems and to explore possible solutions. In 2012, 301 community meetings were held with the objective of addressing the issues confronting the local women.
HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY Due to a lack of correct information regarding ailments and access to the requisite remedies, members commonly believe that adequate healthcare is not within their reach. In order to address these problems, counter such negative beliefs and to re-instill faith among the people in the health services offered by the Government and other agencies, SEWA staff members organize awareness sessions in the community to impart knowledge about preventive and curative primary health care. During 2012, a total of 111 health sessions were held with 2,264 members.
LINKAGES WITH GOVERNMENT SCHEMES In order to ensure that its members are able to avail of the benefits meant for them offered by government. SEWA disseminates relevant information about relevant schemes and helps them with the procedural formalities. In 2012, 3 Below the Poverty Line (BPL) cards, 10 Above the Poverty Line (APL) cards, 8 identity cards and 23 Aadhar cards were made for SEWA members to enable them to benefit from the various welfare schemes of the Government.
7.3 SEWA in UTTARAKHAND
In 2006, SEWA Bharat initiated its work in the hill state of Uttarakhand. The work was Membership till undertaken on two fronts. In Dehradun, SEWA began by organizing women workers through its traditional approach of struggle and development. In five rural districts, at the December 2012: invitation of the Government, SEWA Bharat supported micro-finance activities by SHGs, thereby contributing to an overall movement towards micro-finance in the state. Presently, SEWA Bharat works in the districts of Almora, Pithoragarh, Bageshwar, and 4,718 Pauri Rudraprayag and in the Gandhigram and Patel Nagar areas of Dehradun.
ONGOING PROGRAMMES IN UTTARAKHAND
EMPLOYMENT GENERATION
SEWA–SBI FINANCIAL INCLUSION More than 75 per cent of Uttarakhand’s population falls under the category of ‘rural’. Owing to the high altitude, poor connectivity with roads, and thinly spread population in the state, bank services are often very limited. In order to bridge the chasm between the rural areas and banking services, SEWA, in collaboration with the State Bank of India (SBI) began a unique initiative of financial inclusion in 2009. SEWA provides livelihoods to such women who connect thousands of villagers with banking services.
SEWA Bank Saathis are mostly from poor backgrounds and are part of the community. Training is also done to help them better understand not only the financial needs of the SEWA members but also to also handle with sensitivity the community women’s needs for government linkages, livelihoods, social security and organizing They do not represent a shop. SEWA thus ensures that the services reach the poor at their doorsteps She is available to collect a sum of Rs 10/- too. Women who are appointed as Customer Service Points (CSPs) must meet the following requirements that have been pre-determined by SEWA: In need of employment; Must have attained school education up to Class X; and Comfortable with travelling to the bank and to the hitherto unbanked areas.
26 Figure: UNIQUE EMPLOYMENT MODEL
Unlike most Business Correspondents, SEWA finances the POS machines; the transaction deposit amount in the Bank is used to pay them an assured salary and to take care of their expenses. SEWA does not take security deposit from them. This is the only way of ensuring that the poor support the poor.
The State Bank of India issues a Business Correspondent Code to the CSPs, who provide a of bank services like: Opening of zero balance account; Deposition of savings; Cash withdrawal; Remittance; Loan application; Distribution of Government schemes; and Employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
A Little World, the technology provider, then generates a unique CSP ID and leverages a Point of Sale (POS) machine. Using these machines, the CSPs reach out to the unbanked areas; the POS machines help in customer identification by recording fingerprints, voices and customer photographs. Once the data on the customers has been entered, it is linked to an account and the customer details are subsequently uploaded to the Mumbai server through GPRS. As many as 90 per cent of SEWA’s ‘No Frill Accounts’ are active rather then being idle. These accounts are thus fulfilling the needs of the poor.
ASSOCIATED BENEFITS: The rural population of Uttarakhand primarily consists of the elderly, women and young children. Men regularly venture out to the cities in search of better employment opportunities. The main occupations of these women are agriculture and animal husbandry, which are difficult to pursue, at best. The state has long struggled to retain these
27 people through local employment and income generation. Through the implementation of this unique model, which is currently operational in 16 blocks of four districts, employment generation for women has grown manifold and the gap between financial inclusion and financial stability has narrowed (see table below).
PARTICULARS No. of A/c* Amount*
Total Deposit 15701 4,35,52,944 Total Advances 232 1,83,37,500 Total 15,933 6,18,90,444 Transaction n/a 3,80,781
Table 12: Bank Correspondent Model achievements 2012
Figure: UNIQUE BUSINESS MODEL
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS OF SEWA-SBI MODEL in 2012 The Vodafone Foundation, in association with the Digital Empowerment Foundation, launched the Women and Innovation for Mobile (WIN) Award, in 2011, to honour and recognize innovative mobile applications and solutions benefiting women users in the category of Education, Healthcare, Family Welfare, Economic Empowerment and Entrepreneurship. The Grand Jury deeply appreciated the innovations of the SEWA–SBI Financial Programme and the positive impact it had on women workers as a result of which it emerged as a finalist contender for the awards.
28 ORGANIC FARMING Despite being heavily dependent on agriculture for its economy, India has for long failed to meet its population’s demand for food. As the system of traditional knowledge and practices in the country increasingly failed to produce enough to feed the increasing population, India resorted to the Green Revolution, which changed India from a country dependent on food imports to one that could in fact export. This sea change, however, came at the cost of the ecology and the environment. In view of this negative impact on the environment, organic farming emerged as a savior, providing an opportunity to rescue the environment from the persistent damage.
The rural areas of Sult, Bhikiyasen and Tadikhet in the Almora district of Uttarakhand are famous for their organic agricultural produce like red and yellow chilly, turmeric and coriander. The local farmers comprised of mostly women work earnestly to making ends meet but due to the lack of accessibility to markets, they fail to attain the right price for their produce. The absence of proper infrastructure for agriculture and poor road connectivity makes the situation even grimmer. Middlemen capitalize on these difficulties and manipulate the rate to maximize their own gains, causing even more distress to the farmers. The lack of financial literacy among the farmers also leads to mismanagement of finances amongst themselves. However, this year, due to the efforts of SEWA, the women’s produce of red and yellow chilies was successfully brought to the market, thereby removing the middlemen and helping them get the right price for their produce (Figure 4). Thus, despite losing a large part of their produce to heavy rainfall and landslides this season, many group members still participated in the aggregation of their chili produce and were able to sell it at a profitable price. SEWA also imparts training to these members on the use of new techniques and the latest technology for organic farming. Going forward, SEWA is planning to undertake value addition to the produce, which would fetch a higher price for it. Additionally, the produce of these women farmers is undergoing the process to be endorsed by the Government as organic. Currently, it has succeeded in achieving Phase I certification.
SEWA Bharat has additionally been collaborating with agricultural universities, Organic Certification Boards, Krishi Anusandhan Kendras and RUDI (a SEWA farmers’ enterprise) for providing technical training to its women members in Uttarakhand in order to help them augment their productivity. The women farmers have expressed their appreciation of the opportunity they get to go on exposure visits to other states and institutions in order to imbibe knowledge on farming techniques and cooperatives, among other things.
Figure 4: ESTABLISHING LINKAGES
Building leadership and managerial skills, Producer Groups ensuring product quality and procurement and marketing
Organizing women to form producer groups and Farmer Women members linking with SEWA’s financial inclusion and social security programmes
The women farmers of Almora have been mobilized and linked with other programmes of SEWA to ensure their holistic development. About 10-12 women members involved in the farming of chilly and other spices (in accordance with the season) organize themselves into Producer Groups, which are actively involved in information sharing and the accumulation of produce at the village level.
The Producer Groups also hold monthly meetings to establish linkages with different Government agricultural schemes whereby they receive high quality seeds. These meetings help them learn about new trends in the organic sector. Further, they are trained to enhance their agricultural inputs, and consequently their productivity.
In 2012, SEWA formed 56 producer groups comprising women farmers and acquired 30 quintals of chilies. In order to help farmers keep abreast with the latest market rates for their produce, 500 farmers were linked to the Reuters Market Light (RML), a mobile service that provides information on the market price of the farmers’ produce on a daily basis.
29 MICRO FINANCE: SEWA’s microfinance programme is designed to spread awareness among the women about the necessities of saving, and how it forms the foundation for securing one’s future financially. Table 13 details SEWA Uttarakhand's achievements in micro-finance through 2012.
S.NO MEASURABLE NUMBER/AMOUNT 1. Total number of SHGs till December 2012 116 2. Total number of members till date 1,019 3. Total amount of savings till date (excluding share capital) Rs. 24,40,760 4. Total amount of outstanding loans Rs. 11,48,547 Table 13: Microfinance SEWA in Uttarakhand 2012
ORGANIZING AND ADVOCACY: SEWA has worked to spread the movement through the districts of Uttarakhand by imparting grassroots training and holding ideology sessions. A team of master trainers, selected from amongst the community, conducts meetings with the SHGs and serves as mobile helpers who facilitate provision of access to Government schemes through advocacy and support. The members were made aware of the objectives of group formation. They were also informed about the work of SEWA, and its vision and principles, among other things. They were educated about the profitability of SHGs and about different livelihood options available to them. A total of 55 mohalla meetings were held in 2012, which were attended by 751 women.
LINKAGES WITH GOVERNMENT SCHEMES SEWA constantly liaises with the Government to ensure that the basic socio-economic amenities are provided to the groups targeted by welfare schemes. For the same purpose, SEWA facilitates the procurement of pension cards, and the processes required for availing of various Government provisions such as widow schemes. During the year: 52 income certificates were made; and 18 SEWA members managed to avail of the widow pension scheme.
7.4 SEWA in KATIHAR
SEWA Katihar came into being when the production of agarbattis (incense sticks) in Membership till Munger was adversely affected by the poor quality and delayed delivery of bamboo December 2012: sticks purchased from Gaya.Katihar, located in the northeast corner of Bihar borderingWest Bengal, was then surveyed to assess the availability of bamboo. The results of the survey indicated that the district not only had bamboo in abundance 10,000 and was well linked by road to Munger but also that the economic condition of the women in the district, who were mainly migrants of Bangladesh, was depressing. They were desperately in need of a livelihood and health facilities.
Thus, SEWA Bharat decided to organize the women of the district and link them with the activity of agarbatti stick production that would cater to the Munger agarbatti cooperative’s average monthly demand of 3,000– 4,000 kilograms of agarbattis. The activity necessitated extensive training for more than 30 women in bamboo stick production. The training was conducted in the months of September, October and November during which the machines and raw material were provided to the women. It was also observed that agarbatti stick making led to a lot of wastage of bamboo, which could be utilized for alternative purposes.
ONGOING PROGRAMMES IN KATIHAR
SEWA is running a number of ongoing programmes in Katihar, including in income generation, vocational training, health and social security, and microfinance.
30 EMPLOYMENT GENERATION
SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT (SWM) The constant depletion of our environment is an issue of pressing concern in contemporary times due to the increase of natural disasters and the reality of global climate change. Waste management assumes importance, particularly in the Indian context, owing to rapidly expanding towns and cities amid a burgeoning population. Katihar produces roughly 32 tonnes of solid waste, barely half of which is properly disposed of. Improper waste disposal leads to: deterioration in the quality of life; erosion of communal space; creation of unhealthy surroundings; and further depletion of the environment.
Waste from offices, households, markets, schools and hospitals is often thrown on the street or into drains, is dumped on communal or vacant ground, or is burnt. Any collection of waste is a breeding ground for germs and therefore a potential a health hazard. Thus, innovative and sustainable plans are needed to combat this deterioration of the environment. SEWA Bharat began its Solid Waste Management programme christened, ‘Swacch Katihar, Swasthya Katihar’ (Clean Katihar, Healthy Katihar) with the objective of improving the existing waste disposal system by creating a replicable, inclusive and effective waste management scheme. This operational model entails: door-to- door waste collection, sweeping of streets, and c leansing of the drainage system.
The above measures are intended to prevent any gathered waste lying unattended, to help in the active conservation of the environment, and to make Katihar a visibly cleaner and healthier place. SEWA Bharat’s model, which is being implemented in collaboration with the Katihar Municipal Corporation, is functional in 11 of the 45municipal wards in the district.
Swacch Katihar, Swasthya Katihar is the first of its kind SWM model to provide multifaceted benefits:
PROVISION OF DIGNIFIED EMPLOYMENT: Poor and vulnerable waste collectors are offered a means of employment through this initiative, entailing a reliable, steady income and a dignified job.
EFFICIENT WASTE MANAGEMENT SOLUTION: By reducing the accumulation of waste, SEWA helps prevent further pollution or decaying of the environment.
RRDUCTION IN POVERTY AND INEQUALITY: By providing a source of financial stability, the SEWA model helps improve the existing quality of life and aims to link members and their children to other services including disbursement of microfinance, vocational training, and healthcare and safety programmes. Further, in order to tackle the issue of persistent discrimination, SEWA actively employs Dalits to provide them dignified employment and help them emerge from the backward status imposed upon them by society.
STIMULATING SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION
CHANGING ATTITUDES AND CONTRIBUTING TO BETTER CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY: Awareness sessions are held regularly to keep the local residents abreast of the developments, environmental concerns and their remedies.
REPLICABLE MODEL: The issue of Solid Waste Management is not limited to merely Katihar. This model can be extended to other small areas of Bihar, thereby increasingly contributing to productive environmental conservation.
'Nobody would give us a respectable salary; SEWA is the only one that has given us the option of a better life.’ - Basanti Ben, Saundarya Saathi
31 PROCESS FLOW: Swacch Katihar, Swasthya Katihar
A small team of community Waste Each team of Saundarya Saathisis split into two, with 1 Collectors (Saundarya Saathis) are assignedto one group carrying dustbins to the households to 2 an area for collecting waste and collect the waste and dump the cumulated waste on sweepingthe streets six days a week, from their tricycles, while members of the other group 6a.m.to 1p.m. sweep the streets. The waste collection from each ward is completed by night. Recyclables are segregated from the household waste by the waste During the final stage of the process, the collectors and are sold for an extra income. 4 waste collected from various secondary collection areas is dumped onto a 3 designated dumping ground, provided by The penultimate stage entails dumping of the Municipal Corporation, by a team of thecollected waste at designated secondary labourers with the help of tractors. This collectionareas in the respective wards of the task is completed by p.m. every day. Saundarya Saathis.
The traditionally indigent waste collectors are aptly addressed as ‘Saundarya Saathis’ as a part of the programme. The term, which means ‘beautification agents’ in Hindi, highlights SEWA’s aim of empowering the downtrodden socially by labeling the work undertaken by them, that is, door-to-door waste collections, sweeping of the streets and cleansing of the drainage system, as a means of beautification of the city. Furthermore, these members are provided access to a gamut of other services such as education, financial stability, and social and healthcare schemes launched by the Government.
Hence, going beyond merely being a source of employment generation, SEWA aims to holistically improve the standard of living of the people associated with this initiative. Functioning as a cooperative, Swachh Katihar, Swasthya Katihar is locally aimed and managed, while employing a decentralized strategy to deal with the issues at hand. This model has shown that it is possible to change things. If people see it then they get convinced.’ -A Katihar Resident
SWACCH KATIHAR, SWASTHYA KATIHAR MILESTONES OF 2012 More than 120 Saundarya Saathiswere organized to manage and collect door-to-door household solid waste. During the year, a total amount of Rs. 48,27,768 was given as stipends for the Saundarya Saathis. 82 Saundarya Saathis have been enrolled in 7 SHGs with a total savings of Rs. 24,050 and so far two members have availed of loans worth Rs. 5,000 to meet their emergency needs. The Saundarya Saathis have also been offered access to preventive, promotive and curative health services in the form of 3 health awareness sessions, 3 general health check-up camps, 1 Pap smear test camp, and referrals to hospitals for treatments. The camps served 800 people in total. In addition, bank accounts were opened in regional and nationalized banks for 66 Saundarya Saathis.
The innovative Swachh Katihar, Swasthya Katihar scheme has helped link 3,500 more households to the programme taking the total number of households enjoying waste collection services to 7,255.
The process of registration of the ‘Saundarya SEWA Cooperative’ was also initiated this year. Two sets of duly filled documents have been submitted to the cooperative office for registration.
The year 2012 also saw SEWA Bharat Katihar celebrating World Environment Day as Saundarya Saathi Divas with Harit Puruskaars (Green Awards) being given to the most environment-friendly households, Saundarya Saathis and wards. The third annual Paryavaran Mela (Environment Fair) was held in October 2012, followed by a round-table conference to discuss the future of the programme and explore the possibility of collaborations with institutions/organizations. The other activities held during the year included three cleanup drives, four wall-painting events, and a rally in support of the ban on the use of plastic.
32 VOCATIONAL TRAINING: The vocational training programme in Katihar includes two courses—one in computer literacy and the other in cutting and tailoring. These training programmes help in capacity building, thereby improving employment prospects for the young girls. In the case of both the courses, examinations are conducted at the end of the classes, and certificates are issued to those who succeed in passing them. As part of the computer course, the girls are taught the basics of computer usage in addition to lessons in the operation of various software programmes like MS Word, MS Excel and MS PowerPoint. During the cutting and tailoring classes , women are taught how to cut and tailor fashionable dresses, kurta s and half- pants.
MICROFINANCE: SEWA’s microfinance programme is designed to make the women aware of the necessity of saving as a means of securing one’s own future as well as that of one’s family. Table 14 presents the achievements of SEWA members in Katihar as of 2012.
S. NO MEASURABLE NUMBER/AMOUNT 1. Total number of SHGs till December 2012 41 2. Total number of members till date 457 3. Total amount of savings till date (excluding share capital)( Rs.) 4,65,090 4. Total amount of outstanding loans (in Rs.) 1,21,293 Table 14: SEWA in Katihar Achievements 2012
ORGANIZING AND ADVOCACY: In keeping with the aim of organizing workingwomen in the local community, regular mohalla meetings are held to provide them a platformto express their demands and share the issues that concern them. During 2012, 26 mohalla meetings were held.
HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY: SEWA Katihar organized and gathered women to participate in 77 awareness sessions wherein they were educated on various issues with regard to healthcare, sanitation and communicable diseases. Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among women in India; the mortality is three times higher in the rural areas than in the urban areas. The World Health Organization (WHO) advocates the promotion of personal hygiene, early detection and public health education as the multiple means through which the mortality rate for this disease can be brought down. Thus, SEWA in Katihar has taken the initiative to educate women about cervical cancer and the importance of its early detection. Several awareness camps were held during the year to educate women about the disease, and these camps exposed the shockingly limited knowledge that women, especially in the rural areas, have about uterine infections and the need for personal hygiene. Apart from awareness generation, the camps also offered free screening tests for women. The Pap Smear Test, which is used to detect any pre-cancerous or cancerous movements in the endocervical canal of the female reproductive system. Any untoward movement can be recorded with the help of this test, thereby preventing cervical cancer (if detected on time). SEWA in Katihar arranged for cervical cancer screening camps wherein its members underwent a free Pap smear test: 11 Pap smear camps were held in 2012.
In order to enable SEWA members to utilize the public welfare services available under various Government schemes, referrals are made to hospitals to enable the members to derive benefits from the health schemes designed for them. Thus by providing suitable care to the SEWA patients, these referrals also help reinstate the people’s beliefs in Government schemes. 724 referrals were made by the end of December 2012 leading to savings worth Rs. 4,13,735.
LINKAGES WITH GOVERNMENT SCHEMES: In view of its aim to establish increased linkages with Government schemes, SEWA in Katihar has facilitated the association of women workers with a variety of schemes. In 2012, SEWA helped in the issuance of 59 residential certificates, 23 income certificates, 4 widow pension cards, 3 caste certificates, and 7 old age pension cards.
33 7.5 SEWA in RAJASTHAN
SEWA Bharat commenced its activities in Bikaner by conducting a study of home-based workers in the city. Both this study and another survey that SEWA Bharat undertook with the help of the Central Labour Ministry, revealed the poor social and economic condition of women workers in the papad industry in 2001. Since then, SEWA Bharat has been actively engaged in highlighting the problems of these women and in ameliorating their condition. In 2006, SEWA Bharat organized women in Jaipur while primarily focusing on the welfare of vendors. Following the successful endeavors of the Mahila Housing Trust in Jodhpur, SEWA Bharat initiated its micro-finance programme in 2008 on demand from its members. Currently, SEWA’s work is operational in Bikaner, Jaipur and Jodhpur
SEWA in JAIPUR In December 2006, SEWA extended its work to Jaipur with the aim of organizing the street vendors and hawkers trading in vegetables, old clothes, earthenware, and so on. Membership till Currently, SEWA Bharat has a presence in six areas of Jaipur, namely, Vidyadhar December 2012: Nagar, Hasanpura, Jhalana Dungri, Jawahar Nagar, Bandha Basti and Sanjay Nagar Bhatta Basti. Within these areas, street vending is the primary source of income for most of the women, with some of them also engaging in embroidery. Having worked 1,500 tirelessly to strengthen women workers and make them self-reliant, SEWA Bharat’s committed efforts were rewarded when in December 2011, SEWA Rajasthan was registered as a trade union.
ONGOING PROGRAMMES IN JAIPUR
ORGANIZING AND ADVOCACY In order to enable its members to benefit from its services in a more holistic manner, SEWA conducts ideology-training workshops to explain the goals that SEWA works towards, its current fields of interest, and how the members themselves stand to gain through their association with SEWA. These training sessions help the members realize their own potential and bind them together as a unit.
. Thirty - Five such meetings were held which were attended bymore that 500 people.
LINKAGES WITH GOVERNMENT SCHEMES: SEWA organized social security camps to amass a greater number of people and to reinstate the importance of social security schemes. The Government had issued individual passbooks that have been distributed to the members. Members regularly deposit money in their accounts and have shown considerable faith in the available social welfare schemes of the Government. A series of mohalla meetings indicated that the construction workers wanted to be registered with the Construction Welfare Board. In order to meet this demand, SEWA subsequently submitted forms but was told that a formal registration was required. Through the course of the year 2012, 75 such cards were made. 30 members received Unique Identification Cards 100 ration card forms were filled out. 18 birth certificates were successfully made. Membership by SEWA in JODHPUR December 2012: Mahila Housing Trust (MHT), a sister concern of SEWA, initiated its work in two urban slums of Jodhpur with the Asian Developmental Bank (ADB) supporting the Rajasthan Urban Infrastructure Development Project (RUIDP). The programme helped improve the 2,586
34 conditions of two slums inhabited by a total of 220 households, by providing them with basic infrastructure such as toilets, sewage connections, sewer lines, open and surface drains, culverts and concrete roads. MHT developed community-based organizations to monitor and supervise the overall work, a measure aimed at developing ownership and partnership among the members. Moreover, this project was undertaken on a cost-sharing basis with each household contributing one-fourth of the total cost for individual services. During the project period, the community members requested MHT to help them in the formation of SHGs. Thus SEWA Bharat extended its operations to this city in Rajasthan in order to fulfill the needs of the women workers and also to study their other requirements. SEWA initiated its micro-finance programme in Jodhpur in June 2008 and simultaneously conducted a socio-economic survey in ten urban slums.
ONGOING PROGRAMMES IN JODHPUR
ORGANIZING AND ADVOCACY: In order to grasp the pulse of the city they are located in, SEWA functionaries hold mohalla meetings wherein they congregate the marginalized populations of the society and engage them in in-depth conversations about their needs and aspirations. Being a membership-based organization (MBO), SEWA has always considered its self-employed women members as the foundation of their union. It has given voice and recognition to its members. During 2012, 53 mohalla meetings were held with 1,171 people in attendance. Through the course of these meetings, workingwomen bring to the forefront issues specific to their trades. During the course of 2012, 20 trade committees were formed in ten areas with a total of 200 members, with the objective of promoting an understanding of their basic rights.
ADVOCACY FOR TIE AND DYE WORKERS Rajasthan, as an ancient state, is widely known for its bandhej (tie and dye) work, colloquially called bandhini. Popular across the length and breadth of the country, bandhej work entails a long process requiring intricate and steady care. Through a series of meetings, it was learnt that bandhej workers, though a part of the Rajasthan Minimum Wages List, are unable to avail of its benefits. In the unorganized sector, where labour is vulnerable to exploitation due to illiteracy and lack of effective bargaining power, the minimum rates of wages are fixed by both the Central and state Governments.
Within the Act, the employers are bound to pay the workers the minimum wage from time to time. Furthermore, the rates have not kept up with the economic climate and have remained unchanged for nearly a decade. Low returns have compelled many workers to explore other livelihood options as a result of which the heritage of the state has begun to wither away. In order to understand their existing living conditions, 2 socio- economic surveys were undertaken in the course of the last year. Adding to their woes, the absence of any skill up gradation makes their work and thereby their progress stagnant.Understanding their prevalent issues, SEWA held capacity building training workshops to enhance the capacity and help hone the skills of 200 women workers.
LINKAGES WITH GOVERNMENT SCHEMES: In an effort to further the Government’s schemes and ensure their optimal implementation, SEWA in Rajasthan has worked towards:Linking 15 workers to the government’s Palanhaar scheme, which guarantees food and nutrition to orphaned children; and securing the successful approval of 23 widow pension schemes.
SEWA in BIKANER SEWA Bharat initiated its work in Bikaner in the year 2001, mainly to Membership till address the issues of papad rollers. Over the years, Bikaner has expanded its December 2012: work in over 15 urban slums, mostly comprising papad rollers, wool spinners, vendors and women involved in stitching. 15,100
35 ONGOING PROGRAMMES IN BIKANER
MICROFINANCE: SEWA’s experience in micro-finance testifies to the need for developing the capacities of members of SHGs through regular training so that they can cultivate a sense of ownership towards their groups and jointly work to strengthen them. SEWA’s achievements in microfinance are summarized in the table below.
S.NO MEASURABLE NUMBER/AMOUNT 1. Total number of SHGs formed till December 2012 156 2. Total number of members till date 2,311 3. Total amount of savings till date (in Rs.) Rs. 82,19,007 4. Total amount of outstanding loans (in Rs.) Rs. 20,78,670 Table 15: SEWA in Bikaner Microfinance achievements 2012
ORGANIZING AND ADVOCACY: Staff members are trained to conduct sessions on SEWA’s ideology and on how women must work together to become stronger agents of change. Poor women are mobilized and educated about SEWA’s history and ideologies and the various processes of development that SEWA has undergone. Through ideology training, women are told about how they can contribute to the economy and their collective bargaining power.
MINIMUM WAGE CAMPAIGN FOR PAPAD ROLLERS: Bikaner is well known for its papad production with hordes of small and large factories providing indirect employment to a large number of home-based papad rolling women. A socio-economic survey of papad rollers in Bikaner showed the greater prevalence of nuclear families with an average size of five members. Generally, the women involved in papad rolling have been found to be married, in the age bracket of 26-45 years and illiterate. The monthly income of these women is usually below Rs. 1,500. A very small percentage of them were found to be involved in any secondary occupation such as wool spinning and stitching, which can fetch an additional income of Rs. 500 per month. The payments are received by the women workers every fortnight.
What was subsequently brought into the limelight was the high degree of involvement of middlemen in the business. The rejection rate is also high and the implication for their wages is not good. The women spend a considerable time in the procurement/exchange of goods. They are only provided with dough as the raw material and no tools or ingredients like wheat, flour or besan are given to them. The drying of papad is a very tedious job and requires open space and precision on the part of the papad rollers. Primarily, the female children were found to be assisting their mothers, for a minimum duration of an hour or two. Only a few of these rollers received any payment in the form of cash or kind during festivals. The women have also not been provided with any passbook for maintaining their records of payments.
The survey also indicated that the Government health facilities are well utilized by the women in Bikaner. The most common ailment that the women were found to be suffering from was backache as they have to sit in bent positions in order to roll papads. The other common problem prevailing among the women was the hardness of their palms, which resulted from the pressure exerted while rolling papads. Some of the families have taken insurance from SEWA’s insurance programmes. It was also found that a majority of these women stayed in single-roomed pucca houses, which offered the facilities of adequate drainage, toilets, bathrooms and water supply. A few of them also stayed in rented premises. It was further found that a very few women are associated with the SHG system while most of the others are dependent on moneylenders.
Apart from papad rolling, women are also involved in home-based trades such as vadi- and wool making. Papad- making has brought a great deal of economic prosperity to large factory owners, but there has been no improvement in the conditions of the women workers associated with it. They continue to be financially weak and vulnerable and remain socially underprivileged. Fairly recently, the government of Rajasthan acknowledged the workers engaged in papad rolling and included this trade under the Rajasthan Minimum Wage List.
36 LINKAGES WITH GOVERNMENT SCHEMES: In recent years, the issue of social protection has assumed a lot of importance in India, particularly with regard to the positive role that social protection can play in alleviating the adverse effects of the global and domestic economic crises, and in strengthening the social dimension of globalization. Important measures in the spheres of social security, poverty alleviation and social welfare are being implemented by various government agencies. We, at SEWA, aim to become the means through which the common people can get access to these services. In Bikaner, we constantly liaise with the government to ensure that our members can procure important documents and registrations. To this end, SEWA has assisted in issuing the following: 30 death certificates; Procurement of 31 caste certificates; and Registration of 94 construction workers under the Construction Welfare Board.
8. RESEARCH STUDIES
SEWA Bharat undertakes research studies with the aim of producing constructive qualitative and quantitative data on the basis of which key policy-making decisions can be made, and the existing living conditions of those in need can be bettered. During the course of 2012, SEWA Bharat undertook three research studies, discussed in detail below.
8.1 Direct cash transfer study: SEWA Delhi
A pilot Cash Transfer Study was undertaken to explore the possible methods of offering assured food security. Despite having allocated funds for beneficiaries under the Public Distribution System (PDS), large part of the allocated amount does not reach the intended beneficiaries. In order to address this issue and identify the needs and preferences of the beneficiaries, SEWA, with support from the Delhi Government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) decided to test the effects of substituting the PDS rations with cash transfers for Below Poverty Line (BPL) families so that the latter could have the option to choose either food or cash, depending upon their convenience.
The Direct Cash Transfer (DCT) pilot study was carried out in Raghubir Nagar for a year and BPL cardholders in the targeted area were mobilized, following which awareness about the study was generated. A total of 450 BPL families were randomly selected to volunteer in the study and 100 families were selected from this group to receive the cash transfer. The selected families were not entitled to take anything from the ration shop during the pilot period in order to be able to avail of the cash transfer benefits. The cash transfer for all the selected families was in the name of the women of the respective families only; an account was opened for this purpose in the name of each woman concerned in the nearest bank and the stipulated amount was transferred into her account every month.
Methodology 1. Quantitative Study, which involved: A baseline survey (before the cash transfer); A mid-line survey (after six months of the cash transfer); and An end line survey (after completion of one year of the cash transfer), which was aimed at capturing the impact of the cash transfer.
2. Qualitative Study, which involved: Case studies Impact perception surveys among the transfer group households who were receiving the cash transfers.
Key Recommendation: Based on the findings of the study, a policy of choice was recommended for the poor consumers.
37 8.2 Bihar task force: Empowering women workers in the informal economy through social determinants of healthcare
In March 2010, a state level sammelan of women workers was organized in Bihar, with the Hon’ble Chief Minister Shri Nitish Kumar as the Chief Guest of the sammelan. SEWA members submitted a memorandum to the Hon’ble Chief Minister, suggesting that the government of Bihar should form a state level Commission for Women Workers in the unorganized sector in order to link nearly 1 crore and 60 lakh women workers to the mainstream workforce. The Chief Minister graciously accepted the demand made by SEWA members and ordered that the commission be set up.
During the period that followed, SEWA Bharat submitted a draft proposal to set up a commission to the Secretary of the Chief Minister and to the Principal Secretary of Labour, for their consideration. Because setting up the Commission may take time, SEWA Bharat proposed to start a fact-finding ‘Special Task Force’ in which experts from various thematic areas would be members and study sub-groups would be formed to look into different sectors such as employment generation, statistics, skill and education, among others. The task force was intended to serve, first, as a fact-finding mission, for mapping the physical, social, political, environmental, occupational, behavioural, financial and health-related contexts in which these women live and work. The culmination of the project would be the publication of a report on these aspects of the lives of women in the informal sector. It was to be based on a series of individual studies, papers and reports, and would serve as an advocacy document for promoting social protection and economic security programmes for women workers in the unorganized sector in the state of Bihar. It is hoped that the Task Force thus formed, would eventually take over all advocacy-related issues for this group of workers.
8.3 Madhya Pradesh: Unconditional cash transfer study
A research study entitled “Research-based Pilot Cash Transfer Scheme for Improving the Well-Being of Women and Children”was conducted in a sample of twenty villages in the Indore district of Madhya Pradesh. The selected villages were comprised of ten SEWA villages (wherein the organization was active) and ten non-SEWA villages (wherein SEWA was not present). Of these, eight villages (including four SEWA and four non-SEWA villages) were given cash transfers, that is, they were designated as the treatment villages. The objective behind this distinction was to understand the effect of an empowering organization on the use of cash, especially by women.
The transfers were made to every household (universal at the individual level) and without any conditions imposed for receiving the money (unconditional). The amount transferred included Rs. 200 per adult, and each mother was entitled to receive an additional Rs. 100 per child (below the age of 18 years). The money was transferred every month, for a period of one year. A special effort was also made to ensure that these amounts were automatically transferred at regular intervals and that human involvement in the actual transfer was minimized. Each of the 8 treatment villages had about 100 households. In order to ensure a proper matching, the control villages were also slated to have around 100 households. The total number of households in the sample is 2,034.
The programme was started in June 2011 and 12 transfers were made to the beneficiaries with the last transfer going out in May 2012. However, given the condition of financial inclusion in the villages, this was not entirely possible. Money was transferred on a monthly basis to the following people in the villages universally: All usual members of the household, that is, those who live in the household four nights a week and use the same kitchen, would be entitled to a transfer. If information of new birth is given, then money for the child would be transferred into the account of the mother; If the children do not have a mother, then their entitled amount is to be deposited in the father’s account. If information about a new daughter-in-law is given, then the money would be transferred after opening an account for her. If information of a death were reported, the account would be shut. If migration is reported, then the cash transfer would not be discontinued.
38 KEY COMPONENTS OF THE PROJECT: The main features of the unconditional cash transfer project are that it is: Universal; Unconditional; Intended for individuals; Slated to be done through a bank account; and To be undertaken on a monthly basis.
ACTIVITIES 1. Baseline Survey: A baseline survey was conducted in the 20 villages identified for the study. After the survey, the eight transfer villages were selected from a sample of twenty villages, and an awareness campaign was organized in the villages just before the cash transfers. Twenty-four trainers were hired from the local colleges for the project.
2. Interim Evaluation: The research team began planning for the conduction of a midline survey for December 2011. While discussing the form and value of the midline survey, a recurring question came up about the need for replicating the baseline so early into the implementation of the cash transfers. It was realized that due to the problems faced during the baseline survey and issues of financial inclusion like the opening of bank accounts (which are discussed later), it might not be prudent to burden the community with another long questionnaire. The research team also grappled with the fact that the voices of the female respondents were not recorded in the baseline, and that this error needed to be corrected immediately. Therefore, instead of a midline survey, an Interim Evaluation Survey (IES) was planned. This survey was administered to a sample of villages (including two cash transfer SEWA and two non-cash transfer SEWA villages, and similarly in the non-SEWA villages) to a sample population (only 50 per cent of the households were surveyed in the IES villages). The survey was much shorter and offered details of the impact of cash transfers and the problems faced during interaction with the banks.
Twenty enumerators were hired in Indore and trained for four days by SEWA and UNICEF trainers. This training also involved one day of field-testing the questionnaire during which feedback was taken from the enumerators. In order to identify the households, coversheets were made with the household identifications (IDs), names, ages and personal codes of all the family members, and their caste. In this way, the enumerators could identify the right households, with the right household ID, and the data could be merged with the baseline.
3. End line Survey: The questionnaire for the Final Evaluation Survey (FES)/end line survey included all the questions from the baseline. The only major difference between the baseline survey and the FES was the format. Additionally the FES did not have a separate section for the mother and child questionnaire, and put forth the same questions in one questionnaire. A four-day training programme of supervisors and enumerators was organized in Indore. Thereafter, a two-day refresher training was also organized before the team went into the field. Cover sheets such as those used in the IES were also used in the FES for the sake of consistency. The questionnaire was long and was subjected to serious verification after being filled in the field. The questions in certain sections were put to the main respondent, but some sections such as those pertaining to consumption were posed to the main female respondent in the family. After the questionnaires were filled up, they were checked by the field supervisors and returned to the enumerator if blatant inconsistencies were found in them. Thereafter, the verification team checked the questionnaires very minutely, to ensure that the codes filled in were in range, seemed consistent and that the correct respondent answered all the questions properly. The questionnaires were then scanned and sent to Delhi for the entry. The entire survey took a little more than one-and-a-half months.
4. Policy Advocacy: SEWA Bharat, along with UNICEF, has conducted various advocacy programmes in collaboration with various government departments to share the findings and impact of this pilot. A conference was held on the 30th and 31st of May 2013 in New Delhi to share the finds of the pilot with a variety of stakeholders. The event and findings were widely reported on in the media.
39 9. KEY ACHIEVEMENTS 2012: ESTABLISHED SEWAs
9.1 SEWA in Gujarat In its place of origin, SEWA Gujarat led to the birth of many movements aimed at achieving the goals of full employment and self-reliance. SEWA Gujarat attempts to attain these goals by identifying the potential of women workers and the need to strengthen women’s leadership, their confidence, and their bargaining power within and outside their homes. For this purpose, it offers a range of services involving cooperatives, banks, the Trade Facilitation Centre, the Gram Haat, and the SEWA Academy, to name a few.
KEY ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF 2012 In 2012, the rural membership of SEWA Gujarat rose to 5,02,321 amid constant efforts to increase the membership base, and augment self-reliance and skill building among its members with a special focus on the younger generation.
In 9 districts, 50 sanskar kendras (cultural activity centres) and 3 additional centres were made operational. Out of these, 10 centres were turned into Gyan Vigyan Kendras (Knowledge and Science Centres). These centres worked towards the use of technology, thereby generating employment, income and skills of the members. A total of 65,000 families were linked to 10 Gyan Vidyan Kendras and 3 community radio stations were started in 3 areas, including ‘Vali No Radio’ in Mehsana, ‘Shanti Ma No Radio’ in Surendranagar, and ‘Martha No Radio’ in Anand.
Today, SEWA has 105 cooperatives run by democratically elected executive committee of workers with the largest cooperative being SEWA Bank. In 2012, SEWA Bank had 95,423 shareholders in tandem with 29,000 members, who aligned themselves with the services of SEWA Bank, and a credit of Rs 17,00,000 was received.
Through the year, 24,297 members availed of healthcare services. Valued healthcare treatment was provided to 1,134 patients through referrals leading to savings worth Rs. 12,37,835. SEWA Health Cooperative was also acknowledged and rewarded by several institutes such as the Gujarat Rajya Sahakari Sangh, ICICI Lombard and CNBC News channel for its remarkable work in cooperatives. Employment was also generated for 2,318 members, which earned them a total of Rs. 9,87,75,865.
9.2 SEWA in Madhya Pradesh Beginning operations in 1986, SEWA Madhya Pradesh today stands as a registered trade union working in 18 districts of Madhya Pradesh, with the aim of organizing women in the informal sector and generating awareness about their rights and bringing identity to their work. SEWA Madhya Pradesh works with construction workers, street vendors, domestic workers, farmers, and home-based workers.
KEY ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF 2012 ORGANIZING MEMBERS: Achieved through a combined strategy of advocacy, awareness generation and livelihood generation, in 2012, SEWA Madhya Pradesh held 5,685 awareness generation camps in 11 districts with the participation of 82,130 women. Furthermore, 1,022 women were aligned with employment opportunities worth of Rs. 28,90,100.
INFORMATION CENTRES: In lieu of its wide membership base, SEWA Madhya Pradesh operates Information Centres through which constant contact is established with the members, information about government schemes is disseminated, and their woes are registered. Currently, 100 information centres are operational in urban and rural areas.
SOCIAL SECURITY: SEWA Madhya Pradesh facilitates linkages with the available social security schemes and imparts knowledge about them through a rigorous channel of pamphlets, posters and street plays. In 2012, 6,610 members were linked to insurance, pension, education, healthcare and housing schemes.
40 MICROFINANCE: A new cooperative was established in Ujjain in 2011 with the objective of inculcating the habit of saving among SEWA members in order to help secure their future and make loans available to them in times of need. During the year 2012, 650 members were aligned to this programme. In addition to this, the cooperative in Indore had a total of 39,861 members, with total savings worth Rs. 33,02,710.
SKILL DEVELOPMENT: SEWA Madhya Pradesh’s sister organization, Rachna Mahila Grah Udyog works with the objective of buying the produce of SEWA Madhya Pradesh’s members and subsequently marketing it to ensure that all the profits reach the members.
Additionally, a pilot Cash Transfer Study was undertaken in 22 villages.
9.3 SEWA in Kerala Since its inception in the year 1983, SEWA Kerala has been working extensively to uplift domestic workers, street vendors, fish vendors and reed workers.
KEY ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF 2012 The year began with SEWA Kerala’s expansion into the districts of Kottayam and Quilon, eventually moving into areas of Alleppey, Trichur and Calicut by the end of the year. This was also facilitated as SEWA undertook a study on domestic workers in Kerala through the Kudumbashree Mission, which is the Government-sponsored women’s empowerment network.
During the year, SEWA successfully completed two large studies on domestic workers. The first was the study on migrant domestic workers, which was undertaken with the support of the ILO. This study focused on the women who migrate out of the country for domestic work from Kerala to the Gulf countries, and those that migrate within the country for domestic work from Jharkhand to Delhi. This study was jointly undertaken by SEWA Kerala, SEWA Delhi and the Nirmala Niketan Cooperative of Domestic Workers, and exposed a lot of interesting information on the issues that the workers face in their search for decent work. The findings of this study have been shared and hopefully would be followed up.
The second study was undertaken in Kerala as no real data on domestic workers is available. Hence, SEWA undertook this study with the financial support of and through the network of the Kudumbashree. Information was gathered from a sample of 1,75,000 women workers, and it was found that a whopping 20.5 per cent of all poor women who work are domestic workers. With these findings, it is now possible to work further on putting pressure on the State to legislate for these workers.
SEWA celebrated the Domestic Workers day on 16 June. SEWA members participated in large numbers in the celebrations by forming a human chain in front of the Secretariat asking for the ratification of the Convention 189, increase in minimum wages, one day paid off a week, and the setting up of a Welfare Board.
There was a campaign on the Street Vendors’ policy all over the state, which culminated in a march to the Secretariat by the coordination committee of the Kerala Street Vendors Network wherein SEWA plays a lead role. This was to demand that the State should now develop an Act to protect the rights of the street vendors but nothing has developed as yet. Nevertheless, the street vendors have been included in the RSBY and there is greater awareness about their rights to livelihood
The members organized a big struggle to reduce the market taxes in one fish market. Despite large-scale mobilization and discussions with the municipality, the tax was not reduced substantially (from 150 per day to Rs. 75 per day).Hence, there is need for greater efforts on the part of the vendors and of adopting a better strategy during the coming year in order to achieve this goal.
41 10. COLLABORATIVE SISTER ORGANIZATIONS
10.1 SEWA Bank Self-employed women workers and producers are economically very active and contribute to the growth of the economy. They are mainly involved in production, trading and the service sector. However, in spite of their hard work and their contribution to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), they do not have access to financial services, which would help them upgrade their own work and productivity. Self-employed women face two major financial problems: Lack of working capital, and Non-ownership of assets. As a result, a big portion of their meager income goes towards interest on working capital and rent on trade equipment. Terms of borrowing from money- lenders are very exploitative and the formal banking sector is not usually responsive to the special needs of informal sector women workers, in terms of providing appropriate banking services.
Thus, in order to address this problem and free themselves from the vicious cycle of eternal debt, the members of SEWA came forward with their own solution, in a meeting in December 1973: "a bank of their own", where they would be accepted in their own right and not to be made feel inferior. "We may be poor", they said "but we are so many", and indeed 4,000 women contributed a share capital of Rs.10/- each to establish the MAHILA SEWA CO- OPERATIVE BANK. In May 1974, the SEWA Bank was registered as a co-operative bank under the dual control of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the State Government. Since then it has been providing banking services to poor, illiterate self-employed women and has become a viable financial venture.
Share Holders 95,423 Share Capital Account 1,32,59,210 Accounts 4,30,000 Deposits 117,00,55,236 Working Capital 170,80,88,364 Credit Account 1,80,900 Credits 69,27,54,000 Table 16: Mahila SEWA Cooperative Bank review (2012)
Pension: A total of 29,000 members joined SEWA Bank. In order to safeguard its members in their old age, SEWA Bank started the pension scheme. During the last accounting year, 8,259 members were able to avail of the benefits of the Government’s welfare schemes.
As many as 2,50,000 women and 1,000 young girls participated in the training on financial planning. Many young girls opened their accounts with SEWA Bank.
10.2 SEWA Academy Created in 1991 in Ahmedabad, SEWA Academy is the focal point for all of SEWA’s training, capacity building, and research and communication efforts. SEWA Academy functions as the members’ ‘UNIVERSITY’, providing them with their first introduction to a formal learning environment. It is the organizational wing that is responsible for basic membership education and for capacity building, leadership training, communication and research. Round the year, through SEWA Academy trainings on 30 different subjects were imparted. In a total of 442 trainings, 10,820 women participated. 10.3 SEWA Trade Facilitation Centre and Graam Haat The SEWA Trade Facilitation Centre (STFC) represents a unique and innovative movement wherein marginalized artisans themselves are the producers, owners, shareholders and managers of their own company. The STFC works as a bridge linking these vulnerable informal workers with the global market through the sustained, profitable, and efficient coordination of design, production, and marketing of traditional embroidery. The goal of the STFC is to ensure that rural craftswomen in the informal sector enjoy socio-economic security and full employment by building
42 a grassroots’ business enterprise of the artisans.Hansiba is the fashion brand of STFC, which represents thousands of women equipped with the precious skill of hand embroidery and craft. Named after Hansiba, SEWA’s first and senior-most artisan and an inspiring symbol of everything the organization stands for, it showcases some of India’s timeless embroidery skills. Every single Hansiba creation is painstakingly shaped by artisans whose families have been involved in the craft for many, many generations, across centuries, often in the face of extremely harsh situations.
Hansiba has the following unique selling propositions (USPs): 1. Embroidery—All products are hand embroidered and hand crafted 2. As much as 65 per cent of all sales go directly to the artisans. 3. The artisans are the shareholders and suppliers of the company.
In 2012, on the occasion of the completion of four decades of the SEWA movement, Hansiba Museum was launched in Ahmedabad. The Hansiba Museum is designed to showcase to the society the art and work of women. The museum would also act as an inspiration for the new generation and inculcate community values in them. The museum showcases over 1,700 articles, which are either contributions or donations received by SEWA over the past two decades from their women members. These include artifacts and embroidery arts on textiles among many other
10.4 Lok Swasthya Mandali In the early 1980s, SEWA negotiated with the Government of India to help distribute maternity benefits to poor women. The main thrust of SEWA’s health programme was to provide simple, life-saving health information with a focus on disease prevention and promotion of well-being. In addition, SEWA’s health team continued to provide a wide range of primary health care services. Another important goal was capacity-building among local women, especially traditional midwives (dais), so that they become the barefoot doctors of their communities. These women provide services like health education to women and their families.
The health team of SEWA developed into a registered state level health cooperative in 1990: The Shri Gujarat Mahila Lok Swasthya SEWA Sahakari Mandali Ltd. The primary objectives of the cooperative are to provide life- saving, preventive health information/education and to provide low-cost, appropriate curative services at women’s doorsteps. It also helps women and their families get access to referral care. Through the year, 24,297 members availed of health care services. Additionally, valued healthcare treatment was provided to 1,134 patients through Referral SEWA. A fee of Rs. 12,37,835 was reduced through it. During the year, the Lok Swasthya Mandali, in the same year, was awarded the 'best performer' by The Gujarat Rajya Sahakari Sangh, ICICI Lombard and CNBC.
10.5 Vimo SEWA Vimo SEWA is an integrated insurance programme that aims to provide social protection for SEWA members to cover their lifecycle needs and the various risks they face in their lives. Crises such as illness, widowhood, accident, fire, communal riots, floods and other such natural and man-made calamities result in loss of work, income and assets for poor working families. Vimo SEWA provides security against potential threats to livelihood through an
10.6 Mahila SEWA Housing Trust The Mahila Housing SEWA Trust (MHT) was established by SEWA in 1994 with the overall objective of improving the housing and infrastructure conditions of poor women in the informal sector. Within this general framework, MHT facilitates access to services such as shelter finance, legal advice, technical assistance, information on the housing market, and shelter-related income opportunities for poor, working women. Through its advocacy activities, MHT also attempts to influence housing- and infrastructure-related urban and rural development policies and programmes to meet the needs of its membership.
43 The major objectives of MHT are: To improve housing and infrastructure conditions and the overall living environment of SEWA members, including construction of low-cost housing and infrastructure. To create improved access to important services such as shelter finance, legal advice, technical assistance, information on housing material market and shelter-related income, and employment opportunities for poor working women. To influence housing and infrastructure related urban and rural development policies and programmes, and bring the benefits of these policies within the reach of poor women by promoting their own institutions.
Key Activities of MHT: Provision of basic infrastructure in slums and low-income areas in partnership with Urban Local Bodies Development of slum up gradation plans with ULBs to plan and design basic infrastructure in slums; Electrification for low-income households; Training of construction workers, especially women, through the Karmika School for Construction workers; Planning and construction of low-income housing and infrastructure; Technical assistance for construction of disaster-resistant housing in rural areas; Facilitation of access to housing and infrastructure finance with technical support; and Capacity building of the poor on land tenure issues. In 2012, in 49,774 homes of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Bihar, 24,885 people availed of the services of drainage, water and roads.
VIMO SEWA– AFRICA PROJECT Vimo SEWA in collaboration with SEWA Bharat, began working towards the uplifting of the five poverty-ridden African countries. Commencing in December, this project aims to promote an integrated approach towards poverty reduction and self-reliance for women and families in five African countries, through microfinance, micro-enterprise and livelihood promotion, micro-insurance, healthcare and child care, and capacity-building for leadership and management by local people, especially women. In order to achieve these goals, training is provided in the following areas: microfinance; micro-enterprise and livelihood promotion; micro-insurance; healthcare and childcare; and capacity building.
11. BOARD MEMBERS OF SEWA BHARAT
Names Designation Smt. Renana Jhabvala President Smt. Geeta Vice President Smt. Farida Jalees Vice President Smt. Nalini Nayak General Secretary Smt. Shikha Joshi Secretary
12. OUR PARTNERS
Organisation One World Action,U.K, Holdeen India, SIMAVI, Monsoon Trust,U.K, American Embassy, Self Employed Women’s Association, Gender Resource Center(GRC,Delhi), ITC, UNDP, UNICEF, JTT, PACKARD, HIVOS
Colleagues Home Net, International Network of Home Based Workers’ organisations National Alliance of the Street Vendors, (NASVI), India; www.nasvi.net Friends of Women World Banking, (FWWB); www.fwwbindia.org SEWA Movement in South Africa the Self-Employed Women's Union (SEWU) in Durban SEWA in Yemen SEWA in Turkey
44 Sister Organisations Gujarat Mahila Housing SEWA Trust, Banascraft, Shree Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank Ltd, Gujarat Shishu Sangh, Sukhi Mahila Mandal, Gujarat State Mahila SEWA Cooperative Federation, Shri Mahila SEWA Anasooya Trust, SEWA Insurance, SEWA Academy, SEWA Research, Video SEWA
13. HONOUR FOR SMT. ELA BEN BHATT The International Jury of the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust has awarded the 2011 Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development (in February 2012) to Smt. Ela R. Bhatt for her lifetime achievements in comprehensively empowering women in India and elsewhere through grassroots entrepreneurship, access to shelter, healthcare, microfinance, micro-insurance, skills, legal services, collective bargaining power and other means, thereby promoting equitable development and peace, while following the Gandhian path of self-reliance and non-violence. The award was presented by the Hon’ble President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, in the presence of the Hon’ble Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Hon’ble Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson, United Progressive Alliance.
Smt. Ela Bhatt receiving the pretigious 2011 Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development.
45