Lessons Learned from India, Part II

SEWA Styles for the Next Season

The second of SEWA’s two for-profit businesses develops clothing for women and children, using traditional Indian designs. SEWA is fully vertically integrated, with SEWA businesses doing everything from designing the clothing to weaving the fabric to sewing the garments.

SEWA is achieving change on a significant scale. In just the western Gujarat State, SEWA has 500,000 members. More than 100,000 women are policyholders in SEWA’s health and life insurance plans. SEWA bank has 350,000 depositors and, like most microfinance organizations, a very high repayment rate of 97 percent on loans ranging from $100 to $1,100, on which members pay an average interest rate of 15 percent. SEWA’s loan portfolio is entirely funded by the deposit savings of its members.

SEWA Kiosk

Many SEWA members also grow vegetables on their small plots of land which they sell, either to agribusinesses for processing or directly to consumers, such as from this SEWA kiosk. At the annual meeting of the SEWA cooperative members, which I had the privilege of attending, SEWA’s iconic founder, Ela Bhatt, outlined her vision for the future of SEWA members. At age 76, Ela continues to innovate to ensure that the poor women who are SEWA members capture a fair share of India’s expanding economy. She urged SEWA members to consider capturing the value of SEWA-branded agricultural products rather than selling nameless commodities for which other processors would capture higher rents.

Annual Meeting of SEWA Members

SEWA Shop in New Delhi

The strategy for branding SEWA is impressive for its sophistication and its mission of improving the lives of SEWA members. This was the second of the lessons I took away from my exchange with women entrepreneurs in India: our common need to capture the value we create in fair pricing. We work too hard to see these margins captured by other players in the supply chain.