sewa

Stories of Strength and Self-Assurance

The following post was written by Rev. Kathleen McTigue, director of the UU College of Social Justice (UUCSJ). She just finished coleading a service-learning trip to explore justice for rural India with the UU Holdeen India Program.

Our delegation just traveled to India’s western state of Gujarat, where we spent the day on Friday with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a UU Holdeen India Program partner.

Though we had read about SEWA’s work empowering some of India’s most impoverished women, nothing could have prepared us for the morning we spent with the rag pickers. We met with these workers in the place they labor each day: the municipal garbage dump of Ahmedabad, where they pick through fresh mounds of trash to glean the scraps of plastic, paper, and cloth that can still be sold for recycling. Standing high atop the literal mountains of garbage that stretched out on every side, we listened to the women talk about their lives and the difference it has made to have a union that helps them fight for their rights.

We heard Jasiben describe the ways she and her coworkers had been preyed upon by people who buy their gleanings — and how that changed when SEWA opened a competing scrap-buying stall that caters only to women. This stall actually paid market rates for their collections and forced others to raise their prices as well. We learned of SEWA’s tireless efforts to press the government to provide an education to the children of the rag pickers so that the next generation can find alternative employment and an easier life. Epitomizing the end of this particular cycle of poverty, Jasiben’s face shone with pride as she told us that her own daughter has just entered her first year of university. (more…)

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Ela Bhatt honored with Radcliffe Award

Ela Bhatt
Image source: Harvard Magazine

In keeping with a historied tradition of honoring individuals who have had a transformative impact on society, Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study bestowed this year’s Radcliffe Institute Medal upon Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a UU Holdeen India Program partner.

“The definition of leader in SEWA is one who helps make others lead,” said Radcliffe Institute Dean Barbara J. Grosz, quoting Bhatt during her introductory remarks on Radcliffe Day, which took place May 27th.

With a legacy of leading and creating leaders, Bhatt certainly fits the bill.

Empowering over 1.3 million marginalized women in India since 1972, SEWA, under Bhatt’s leadership, has created a social justice movement that’s challenging and changing the very fabric of Indian society, believing that “it is from the margins that real transformation comes to the center.” With its origins as a women’s trade union, SEWA has steadily developed into a self-governed NGO, offering assistance in the form of  microlending, health and life insurance, and child care to its members.

“The Radcliffe Institute is proud to honor [Bhatt] this year, in which gender in the developing world is one of its dominant themes,” the Institute said. The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University is a scholarly community where individuals pursue advanced work across a wide range of academic disciplines, professions and creative arts, with sustained commitment to the study of women, gender, and society.

Over the years, Bhatt has been internationally recognized for her incredible social justice work. Last November, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton honored Bhatt with the Global Fairness Initiative Award; Bhatt was also the 2010 honoree of the Niwano Peace Prize.

The Unitarian Universalist Association, through the UU Holdeen India Program, has been a strong ally and supporter of SEWA for the last 27 years.

Read Harvard Magazine’s coverage of Radcliffe Day and hear Ela Bhatt’s speech

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International Women’s Day: Ela Bhatt Counted Amongst “Women Deliver 100″

Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a partner of the UU Holdeen India Program,  is on the list of top 100 people working to advance women’s lives worldwide.

In line with 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, advocacy organization Women Deliver has announced the “Women Deliver 100,” the group’s list of the hundred “most inspiring people who have delivered for girls and women.”

“This list recognizes women and men, both prominent and lesser known, who have committed themselves to improving the lives of girls and women around the world. Honorees derive from the fields of health, human rights, politics, economics, education, journalism, and philanthropy, and represent a great diversity of geographic and cultural backgrounds,” according to the group.

Included on the list are Michelle Bachelet, executive director of the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, or U.N. Women, Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the U.N., Hillary Clinton, U.S. secretary of state, and Andrew Mitchell, U.K. secretary of state for international development.

“I am flattered to be included in the Women Deliver list which recognizes people working hard to improve the lives of the most vulnerable people in the world,” Mitchell said in a Mar. 2 statement. “Girls and women are at the forefront of the UK Government’s work to tackle poverty in the world’s poorest countries.”

International Women’s Day takes place on March 8th; this is the 100th anniversary of this special day.

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SEWA Organizes the Poorest of the Poor

On February 14, 2011, Rev. Peter Morales, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), embarked upon a two-week journey to India to visit with several partners of the Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Program (UUHIP) and with leaders of the Unitarian Union of North East India (UUNEI).  This blogpost by Rev. Morales is part of the continuing coverage of the journey. In this update Rev. Morales reflects upon his visit with SEWA – the Self-Employed Women’s Association – a partner of the UU Holdeen India Program.

About 30 women sit on the floor ready to begin their organizing meeting. We are at a village office of SEWA (Self Employed Women’s Association) a couple of hours west of Ahmedabad.

These women are SEWA village leaders, and they are something to behold. The overwhelming majority are illiterate Dalits. Years ago they would never have dreamed of leaving their village to attend a meeting. Most would not have come out of their home. Today they are leaders.

SEWA is a stunning success story—and a testimony to the change we Unitarian Universalists can help create with the right partners. SEWA membership is now 1.2 million. And they plan to add millions more in the next few years. This is grassroots organizing at its best.

On this excursion we are accompanied by Reema Nanavaty, SEWA’s extraordinary leader. She is quiet, calm, small, and an organizational force of nature.

At the village meeting we hear the women talk of their organizing work and of the changes they have already wrought. Perhaps chief among these changes is the effect their involvement has had upon men, particularly their husbands. They talk of husbands who originally resisted their work, who moved to grudgingly tolerating it, to the miracle of a husband who will actually cook a family meal while she is away or even serve tea to women who gather at the family home.

SEWA organizes the poorest of the poor. Its focus is upon empowerment. This is not a charity. The strength these women draw from one another is palpable. They have become a movement ten times the membership of all our UU congregations. It is humbling and deeply moving.

One of the women, who works as a “RUDI” (an itinerant merchant of SEWA food and related products), speaks of how she has diversified and now carries a cell phone and charger. For a fee she will charge a phone and also sells minutes, becoming an itinerant cell phone. I jokingly tell her that my phone could use a charging. With a entrepreneurial sparkle in her eye she offers to sell me some minutes if I need to make a quick call.

This, I pray, is how our world will change. SEWA is doing truly amazing work. My phone did not get recharged. I did.

Rev. Morales is on a two-week journey across India to meet with human rights partners.

View more photos from Rev. Morales's visit with SEWA!

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Freedom Tastes Like Salt

On February 14, 2011, Rev. Peter Morales, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), embarked on a two-week journey to India to visit with several partners of the Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Program (UUHIP) and with leaders of the Unitarian Union of North East India (UUNEI).  This blogpost by Rev. Morales is part of the continuing coverage of the journey. In this update Rev. Morales reflects upon his visit with salt workers in Gujarat who the UU Holdeen India Program works with through the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).

It isn’t as though I have not seen poverty before. I saw it growing up in San Antonio. I have seen it in American cities and rural poverty in the deep South, in Latin America, the Philippines, and elsewhere.

The flatlands surrounding the salt pan in Gujarat, India.Yet I was not prepared for the salt pan workers. Even the photos cannot do this justice. We drive across featureless dried mud for miles. Around us there is an endless expanse of perfectly flat, perfectly brown nothingness. I am wishing I had a GPS unit and had “dropped a pin” at the start, for I have no idea where we are or how we could possibly find our way back. We pass some wild asses along the way and wonder what they eat out here.

A salt worker raking brine.Finally we arrive at the camp. We get a tour of the well, the pump, and what look like rice paddies with white salt at the bottom of a few inches of brine. The salt workers camp out here for six to eight months. Entire families come. They walk out here, carrying what they will need. The season begins with women smoothing out the bottom of the salt paddies with their bare feet. We learn that their feet have absorbed so much salt that when they die and are cremated their feet don’t burn.

Rev. Peter Morales meets with salt pan workersOK. I was prepared to see some rough conditions. What really got to me was when we sat having tea and bread squatted on the tent floor. Ready for the big shock? Here it is: They love this! And they are not faking it. Their faces light up when they talk of finally marching out here, carrying all what they will need for the season. The children are happy (children can’t fake this).

For me this would be life in hell. Nothing green in sight (and I mean nothing) for miles. Living in a small tent in a desert. No electricity. Hard work all day. And they love it.

Salt crystals.They love it because here they are free. They set their own pace. They have no overseer. In the village they are Dalits, “untouchables.” They are dehumanized every day. I realize that I take so many freedoms for granted. These untouchables are happy to endure enormous hardship for a small taste of freedom.

Here, in the desert of Gujarat, freedom tastes like salt.

Rev. Morales is on a two-week journey across India to meet with human rights partners.

Salt workers chanting "We are one!"
View more photos from Rev. Morales's visit with the salt workers!

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Clinton honors SEWA founder Ela Bhatt with Fairness Award

Hilary Clinton and Ela BhattYesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented the first Global Fairness Initiative Award to Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a partner of the Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Program (UUHIP).

“She (Bhatt) has helped not only women in India but women in South Africa, in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and inspired so many others to find their own way forward to overcome long legacies of inequality and unfairness. She has helped us imagine and then work toward a fairer world,” Clinton said at the award ceremony, which was held at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.

“So, for her contribution to India and particularly the women of India, and to the global community, it is my honor to present the first Global Fairness Award to my friend, Ela Bhatt,” Clinton said amidst heartfelt applause.

With a membership of over 1.2 million, SEWA works towards strengthening women’s leadership, their confidence, their bargaining power within and outside their homes, and their representation in policy-making and decision-making fora.  The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), through the UU Holdeen India Program, has been a strong ally and supporter of SEWA for the last 26 years.

Also in attendance at the Fairness Award Ceremony were Reema Nanavaty, Director of Economic and Rural Development for SEWA, and Kathy Sreedhar, Director of the UUHIP.

Earlier this year, Bhatt was also conferred the prestigious Niwano Peace Prize.

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