ORGANISING FOR CHANGE SUMMARY BY ELA BHATT
Answers
Answer with Explanation:
Ela Ramesh Bhatt is a social worker and the founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), an association which represents self-employed female textile workers in the country.
The reason behind Ela Bhatt’s idea of organizing the poor and low-income women in the country is that the earnings of women in the country were kept so low due to many unfair and biased practices against them, so she organized a union, called Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).
SEWA‘s primary focus is that poor women are above all workers and to support and empower women working in the unorganized sectors so that they are able to get self-sufficiency and secure employment in those departments. The empowerment of poor women depends upon achieving the two key objectives: one is safe & secure employment, and the second one is self-reliance & self-sufficiency.
Previously, no one knew the basic needs of poor women and how they can be served, it is the experience which has shown SEWA that the needs of poor women are correlated, and the thing which is required is attention.
SEWA's experience is showing to the world that small inputs can bring about major socio-economic changes in women's lives. Similarly, the strategy of combining union organizing with their collective strength, supported by the health services and childcare and also easy access to credit through a women's bank, can bring change in the lives of even the poorest women in the country.
The members of SEWA organized campaigns were illiterate and poor women, and they showed peaceful protests to draw attention to their problems, and slowly gained ground on issues such as difference of wage rates depending on cart-pulling distance, the bribes taken by local police and at the same time harassment by the people.
It is Ela Bhatt’s determination and hard work for the cause of helping the women working in the informal sectors. At the same time, she is proving everyone that these poor and low-income women, if organized in a proper way, can change the fortunes of their families.