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Goals
“Health and child care and insurance is also part of their economic condition. Without that you can’t come out of poverty” Dr Mirai Chatterjee, Director of Social Security, SEWA. SEWA has two stated goals, Full Employment and Self Reliance. They have 11 questions they use to evaluate their progress
 * 1) Have more members obtained more employment?
 * 2) Has their income increased?
 * 3) Have they obtained food and nutrition?
 * 4) Has their health been safeguarded?
 * 5) Have they obtained child-care?
 * 6) Have they obtained or improved their housing?
 * 7) Have their assets increased? (e.g. their own savings, land, house, work-space, tools or work, licenses, identity cards, cattled and share in cooperatives; and all in their own name.
 * 8) Have the worker’s organisational strength increased?
 * 9) Has worker’s leadership increased?
 * 10) Have they become self-reliant both collectively and individually?
 * 11) Have they become literate?

Employment
SEWA Mahila Housing Trust, founded by Renana Jhabvala among others, created the Karmika School for Construction Workers in 2003 to help train women in the construction trades. Women made up 51 percent of employees in construction trades in India in 2003, but most women in the construction industry had been unskilled laborers. After training at Karmika, according to a 2007 survey of graduates, 40 percent reported working 21-30 days per month as opposed to 26 percent who reported similar work days before training. 30 percent became helpers to masons, and 20 percent became masons themselves. These increases come mostly from small private construction projects, such as housing, but there was very little success placing women in the more profitable public sector infrastructure projects. SEWA's childcare cooperatives in Sangini and Shaishav, have helped more than 400 women get regular work as providers of childcare.

Income
In 1994 members’ earnings were Rs 3.9 crores for 32,794 women (about Rs 1200 average). By 1998 members’ average earnings had risen to Rs 30.45 crores for 49,398 women (about Rs 6164 average). This is from aggregate numbers including urban and rural workers. Most of this increase occurred in urban areas. SEWA has had more difficulty pushing for higher wages in rural areas, due to the excess supply of labor in those regions, which weakens the bargaining position of women. In the construction trades, skilled women workers earn comparable salaries to their male counterparts. Mahila Housing SEWA Trust's Karmika School helps women in the construction trades in India to gain those skills. Providing childcare has to led to income increases of 50% in Kheda and Surendranagar.

Food and Nutrition
SEWA’s push for food security brought about programs to deliver food grain in Gujarat. The child care centers established by SEWA have acted during natural disasters such as floods and droughts to provide necessary food as well as other emergency supplies and assistance. The two districts of Surendranagar and Patan in particular have 25 childcare centers in their communities which were able to respond to droughts, epidemics, cyclone, floods and the earthquake in 2001 not only with childcare but also food, water, and shelter.

Health
In 1984, SEWA began offering health insurance, which cost their member Rs 85 annually. Health care has become one of their largest projects. Since 1992, Vimo SEWA has provided life and hospitalization insurance for its members and their families for as little as Rs 100 per person. Enrollment topped 130,000 people in 2005 SEWA found that the very poor used this access to health care less than those slightly less poor. Some of the factors include distance to care providers and facilities and the “ex-post reimbursement” nature of health insurance, in which patients must pay upfront and then claim reimbursement. They continue studying the issue of how to bring access to all. SEWA also has programs to improve water quality by training some of their members to repair pumps for wells and campaigning for underground water tanks for drought prone areas.

Child-care
In studies in the Kheda and Surendranagar districts before 2006, poor women with access to child care earned 50 percent more. Childcare also encourages going to school for the entire community by improving the view of the value of education, as well as freeing older siblings from childcare responsibility, allowing them to continue their education. It removes social barriers by helping to alleviate the caste distinctions as children of all castes learn and play together. It aids poverty alleviation by allowing mothers to work and earn more.

Housing
As of 1989, SEWA bank had 11,000 members. Nearly 40 percent of their loans were for purchasing or improving housing. One requirement of the borrower was purchasing shares in the bank worth 5 percent of the loan. However, most low-income households do not qualify for loans from the bank and still must seek other options. Also, SEWA has pushed for women to put their names on titles for property, in order to improve women's property rights.

Assets
The Shri Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank, or SEWA bank, was created to help self-employed women gain access to financial resources. It began with 4000 women each contributing Rs 10. The bank encourages saving and has adapted the traditional banking approach to assist the mostly illiterate members, such as issuing ID cards with pictures and fingerprints, since many women cannot sign their name, as well as institute “mobile banks” which visit the rural areas and slums in order to provide banking services, since it is difficult for the women to come to the bank. The bank grew from 6,631 members in 1975 to 20,657 in 1997 and from 1,660,431 working capital to 167,331,000. SEWA Bank formed savings and credit groups in the 1990s. They began lending to rural women and encouraged these women to have their names included on title deeds to the lands purchased.

Workers' Organizational Strength
The Surendranagar child care cooparative, which is run locally, inspired the creation of the "Women and Children's Development Mandal". It consists of over 20,000 women and provides services such as finance, employment support, housing services, as well as childcare. SEWA's membership in Ahmedabad had grown to 55,000 workers in 1995, far outpacing the membership of the Textile Labour Association, SEWA's original parent organization, in that city. By organizing and collective action, the women of SEWA were able to achieve a voice in the government that did not listen to them individually. They were able to pool small amounts of money to form the SEWA Bank. They were able to draw attention to the unorganized sector of the economy, those who were self-employed or temporary workers without an explicit employer.

Workers' Leadership
In a 2007 survey of Karmika School graduates, 68 percent report more confidence in their work and higher status within the family. SEWA's organization and leaders have directly created or indirectly inspired other organizations within India, in other countries and worldwide, including WIEGO Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing and SEWU Self-Employed Women's Union, Participation in SEWA's programs and their models has increased women's participation in community affairs, reduced domestic violence, and raised their feeling of empowerment overall. SEWA was recognized as a Central trade union in 2009. SEWA assisted in passing India's Act on the Unorganized Sector, which establishes some welfare and social security for non-traditional employees. They continue to work for a better share of social security and the rights of labor standards enjoyed by traditional employees.

Self-reliance
According to personal interviews in July 1998, women who have worked with SEWA in their communities feel more confident and gain more respect from the men. They have managed co-operative businesses, in one case in a the village of Baldana,better than the men who had managed that same business. The cooperative had been operating at a loss. SEWA helped convert it to women management. The men of the village "forcibly ousted women on renewed profitability. Soon, corruption led to huge losses again and women's and SEWA's intervention."

Literacy
Many of SEWA's members are illiterate, leading to problems in understanding laws, conducting business and daily life. “We cannot read the bus numbers, often we miss our bus” unnamed SEWA member. In 1992, SEWA began offering literacy classes in May 1992 for Rs 5 per month.