We Are Poor but So Many
The Story of Self-Employed Women in India
Price: 560.00 INR
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ISBN:
9780195690811
Publication date:
21/05/2007
Paperback
248 pages
Price: 560.00 INR
We sell our titles through other companies
Disclaimer :You will be redirected to a third party website.The sole responsibility of supplies, condition of the product, availability of stock, date of delivery, mode of payment will be as promised by the said third party only. Prices and specifications may vary from the OUP India site.
ISBN:
9780195690811
Publication date:
21/05/2007
Paperback
248 pages
Ela R. Bhatt
Ela Bhatt is widely recognized as one of the world's most remarkable pioneers and entrepreneurial forces in grassroots development. Known as the "gentle revolutionary," she has dedicated her life to improving the lives of India's poorest and most oppressed citizens. In India, where 93 percent of the labor force are self-employed, 94 percent of this sector are women. Yet self-employed women have historically enjoyed few legal protections or worker's rights.
Rights: IN-NP-BD-LK-MM-BT
Ela R. Bhatt
Description
Ela Bhatt is widely recognized as one of the world's most remarkable pioneers and entrepreneurial forces in grassroots development. Known as the "gentle revolutionary," she has dedicated her life to improving the lives of India's poorest and most oppressed citizens. In India, where 93 percent of the labor force are self-employed, 94 percent of this sector are women. Yet self-employed women have historically enjoyed few legal protections or worker's rights. In fact, most are illiterate and subject to exploitation and harassment by moneylenders, employers, and officials. Witnessing the terrible conditions faced by women working as weavers, stitchers, cigarette rollers, and waste collectors, Ela Bhatt began helping these women to organize themselves. In 1972, Ela Bhatt founded the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) to bring poor women together and give them ways to fight for their rights and earn better livings. Three years after SEWA was founded, it had 7,000 members. Today it has a total membership of 700,000 women, making it the largest single primary trade union in India. Bhatt lead SEWA to form a cooperative bank in 1974 - with a share capital of $30,000 - that offered microcredit loans to help women save and become financially independent. Today the SEWA Cooperative Bank has $1.5 million in working capital and more than 30,000 depositors with a loan return rate of 94 percent. Through years of organization and strategic action, Ela Bhatt developed SEWA from a small, often ignored group into a powerful trade union and bank with allies around the world. During the last three decades, SEWA's efforts to increase the bargaining power, economic opportunities, health security, legal representation, and organizational abilities of Indian women have brought dramatic improvements to hundreds of thousands of lives and influenced similar initiatives around the globe. We Are Poor but So Many is a first-hand account of the vision, rise, and success of SEWA, in India as well as internationally. The book begins with a history of the early days of SEWA and an exploration of the Ghandian philosophy that helped shape SEWA's formation and vision. It follows with an account of the struggles and challenges that SEWA faced in its journey and describes how these were addressed and overcome. It then explores the freedom that SEWA has facilitated for women working in the informal economy by presenting several inspirational stories of individual SEWA members. The final chapter describes the international extension of SEWA's work, the challenges that women face in the informal economy worldwide, and how SEWA can be effectively replicated in other parts of the world. This volume is unique in that it will elaborate the specific experience and knowledge of Ela Bhatt in her and SEWA's journey and provide insights and knowledge that no outside researcher would ever be in a position to replicate.
Ela R. Bhatt
Review
“We Are Poor but So Many is a compelling read for what it tells us about the awesome stamina, commitment, and capabilities of poor women, and about the human spirit. It challenges stereotypes of the poor and turns these stereotypes on their head. For those in power who make policy, and for those who work with the poor, its messages are many and clear. May this book inspire many others to have vision, courage, and tenacity, and, like Ela Bhatt and SEWA, to dare the undoable, enabling poor people to gain for themselves more of the better lives that are so profoundly their right.”
—Robert Chambers, Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex
“This book is an achievement that in turn reflects the abiding achievements of Ela Bhatt’s life of committed struggle on behalf of poor women in Gujarat, India. It shows what can be done with principle allied to practicality. If you want to be inspired, read this book. If you want to be informed, read this book. If you want practical guidance on organizing the poor, read this book.”
—Ravi Kanbur, T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs and Professor of Economics, Cornell University
“The story of Ela Bhatt’s important work organizing female labor in the ‘informal economy’ should be required reading for all policy makers who have anything to do with developing countries and for concerned citizens who care about the impact of globalization and government policies on the lives of the working poor. It is difficult indeed for prosperous Western people to imagine the lives of poor female workers whose very existence is rarely acknowledged by government policy, although they are the backbone of India’s economy: rag pickers, stitchers, hawkers and vendors, agricultural laborers. Bhatt’s eloquent and richly detailed narrative shows the daunting obstacles such workers face, but also their resilience, adaptability, and solidarity.”
—Martha Nussbaum, The University of Chicago
“This is the record of a woman who knows from years of experience the discrimination the poorest women in a country like India suffer and who has pioneered schemes to counter that discrimination. Anyone interested in women’s welfare, the removal of poverty, and widening employment opportunities must read it.”
—Mark Tully, Writer and Broadcaster
Ela R. Bhatt
Description
Ela Bhatt is widely recognized as one of the world's most remarkable pioneers and entrepreneurial forces in grassroots development. Known as the "gentle revolutionary," she has dedicated her life to improving the lives of India's poorest and most oppressed citizens. In India, where 93 percent of the labor force are self-employed, 94 percent of this sector are women. Yet self-employed women have historically enjoyed few legal protections or worker's rights. In fact, most are illiterate and subject to exploitation and harassment by moneylenders, employers, and officials. Witnessing the terrible conditions faced by women working as weavers, stitchers, cigarette rollers, and waste collectors, Ela Bhatt began helping these women to organize themselves. In 1972, Ela Bhatt founded the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) to bring poor women together and give them ways to fight for their rights and earn better livings. Three years after SEWA was founded, it had 7,000 members. Today it has a total membership of 700,000 women, making it the largest single primary trade union in India. Bhatt lead SEWA to form a cooperative bank in 1974 - with a share capital of $30,000 - that offered microcredit loans to help women save and become financially independent. Today the SEWA Cooperative Bank has $1.5 million in working capital and more than 30,000 depositors with a loan return rate of 94 percent. Through years of organization and strategic action, Ela Bhatt developed SEWA from a small, often ignored group into a powerful trade union and bank with allies around the world. During the last three decades, SEWA's efforts to increase the bargaining power, economic opportunities, health security, legal representation, and organizational abilities of Indian women have brought dramatic improvements to hundreds of thousands of lives and influenced similar initiatives around the globe. We Are Poor but So Many is a first-hand account of the vision, rise, and success of SEWA, in India as well as internationally. The book begins with a history of the early days of SEWA and an exploration of the Ghandian philosophy that helped shape SEWA's formation and vision. It follows with an account of the struggles and challenges that SEWA faced in its journey and describes how these were addressed and overcome. It then explores the freedom that SEWA has facilitated for women working in the informal economy by presenting several inspirational stories of individual SEWA members. The final chapter describes the international extension of SEWA's work, the challenges that women face in the informal economy worldwide, and how SEWA can be effectively replicated in other parts of the world. This volume is unique in that it will elaborate the specific experience and knowledge of Ela Bhatt in her and SEWA's journey and provide insights and knowledge that no outside researcher would ever be in a position to replicate.
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