Eagle
10-27-2006, 03:30 AM
Good article, John!
I read up on SEWA and its doings a while back. You know...it could all be turned rightside-up if enough of us re-learned to do this amongst ourselves actively and openly.
http://www.backwoodshome.com/columns/silveira061024.html
In 1974, the women in SEWA formed the Mahila SEWA Co-Operative Bank. The bank is owned by the self-employed women and its policies are made by their own elected board. The bank’s main business is offering loans.
SEWA only loans to low-income women and microentrepreneurs. All self-employed women, age 15 or older, can become members of SEWA, can qualify to join their "union" and can qualify for loans. But, before granting a loan, the bank’s loan committee, made up of self-employed women, consider an applicant's income-generating ability, financial status, soundness of working conditions, and ability to repay. The committee then makes recommendations to the bank’s board. Most of the loans granted are unsecured. But the borrower is required to set aside five per cent of the loan amount to purchase bank shares and to open a savings account if she does not yet have one. The women are also encouraged to register their both their savings accounts and their assets—such as working tools, house, or land—in their own name and not their husbands’.
The bank then lends to the women for three major things: working capital, work tools, and housing. SEWA has not only helped women to build their own businesses, it has helped many women to move out of huts and slums without electricity or water, and to build their own houses complete with the utilities we take for granted. In India the number of women now belonging to SEWA now numbers almost three quarters of a million.
But SEWA goes beyond loaning money. When Jatuben Shankarbhai was hassled by the police, as "unlicensed" vendors frequently are, SEWA also provided her with an identity card which has led to fewer problems. The police are much less apt to hassle someone with a SEWA identity card since the bank now has economic clout and reasons to fight for its members’ rights. So, with economic freedoms they are now gaining, the women in SEWA also have more of the personal freedoms we take for granted.
Jatuben and other depositors also now have a scheduled savings plan, something not before practiced by these women or their families. And, as with saving accounts in this country, the money in the accounts is loaned out to raise even more money. And the people to whom it is loaned are other women like Nanuben, Dayavantiben, and Jatuben who, by bettering their own lots, are bettering the lives of those around them.
Other groups have taken training at the SEWA Bank and have started saving and loaning cooperatives in other parts of India.
Bureaucrats don’t run this. Nor is it supported by taxes. This isn’t welfare. This isn’t money once spent it’s gone. The money is loaned by women who have a stake in the success of the loan, and it’s paid back—with interest—so as to be loaned out again to other women. Money misloaned is simply lost. But the program has a phenomenal success rate and there are very few defaults. And, unlike charitable work that seems to require the endless input of money to sustain it, this is a self-sustaining program.
I read up on SEWA and its doings a while back. You know...it could all be turned rightside-up if enough of us re-learned to do this amongst ourselves actively and openly.
http://www.backwoodshome.com/columns/silveira061024.html
In 1974, the women in SEWA formed the Mahila SEWA Co-Operative Bank. The bank is owned by the self-employed women and its policies are made by their own elected board. The bank’s main business is offering loans.
SEWA only loans to low-income women and microentrepreneurs. All self-employed women, age 15 or older, can become members of SEWA, can qualify to join their "union" and can qualify for loans. But, before granting a loan, the bank’s loan committee, made up of self-employed women, consider an applicant's income-generating ability, financial status, soundness of working conditions, and ability to repay. The committee then makes recommendations to the bank’s board. Most of the loans granted are unsecured. But the borrower is required to set aside five per cent of the loan amount to purchase bank shares and to open a savings account if she does not yet have one. The women are also encouraged to register their both their savings accounts and their assets—such as working tools, house, or land—in their own name and not their husbands’.
The bank then lends to the women for three major things: working capital, work tools, and housing. SEWA has not only helped women to build their own businesses, it has helped many women to move out of huts and slums without electricity or water, and to build their own houses complete with the utilities we take for granted. In India the number of women now belonging to SEWA now numbers almost three quarters of a million.
But SEWA goes beyond loaning money. When Jatuben Shankarbhai was hassled by the police, as "unlicensed" vendors frequently are, SEWA also provided her with an identity card which has led to fewer problems. The police are much less apt to hassle someone with a SEWA identity card since the bank now has economic clout and reasons to fight for its members’ rights. So, with economic freedoms they are now gaining, the women in SEWA also have more of the personal freedoms we take for granted.
Jatuben and other depositors also now have a scheduled savings plan, something not before practiced by these women or their families. And, as with saving accounts in this country, the money in the accounts is loaned out to raise even more money. And the people to whom it is loaned are other women like Nanuben, Dayavantiben, and Jatuben who, by bettering their own lots, are bettering the lives of those around them.
Other groups have taken training at the SEWA Bank and have started saving and loaning cooperatives in other parts of India.
Bureaucrats don’t run this. Nor is it supported by taxes. This isn’t welfare. This isn’t money once spent it’s gone. The money is loaned by women who have a stake in the success of the loan, and it’s paid back—with interest—so as to be loaned out again to other women. Money misloaned is simply lost. But the program has a phenomenal success rate and there are very few defaults. And, unlike charitable work that seems to require the endless input of money to sustain it, this is a self-sustaining program.