Activity Description: Registered in 1972, SEWA is a trade union that unites the labor movement, the cooperative movement and the women’s movement. It is an organisation of poor, self-employed women workers. The women members earn a living through their own labour or small businesses. They are unsalaried, unprotected, and constitute a large portion of India's labor force.

SEWA’s main goals are 1. to organise women workers for full work security, including income, health, food and social security 2. to promote individual and collective autonomy and self-reliance, both economically and in terms of decision-making ability 3. strengthen women’s bargaining power, build their capacities, and offer them new alternatives.

One of SEWA's biggest accomplishments is its Swashrayi Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank, SEWA members' largest cooperative, the first of its kind in india. The bank is owned by the self-employed women as share holders; policies are formulated by their own elected Board of women workers. The Bank is professionally run by qualified managers accountable to the Board. SEWA Bank was established in 1974 with 4000 members each contributed Rs.10 as share capital. Today there are 93,000 active depositers.