Women’s rights, improving maternal health and reducing child mortality are explored in this programme. In Chennai, Charlie Haviland reports on the work of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India.

SEWA is a women's labour movement and organisation formed in 1972 and based in Ahmedabad, India. With a membership of 250,000 poor and self-employed women workers, SEWA aims to help other women workers and their families obtain full employment and economic self-reliance.

Elaben Bhatt, SEWA’s founder and former secretary general, gives her perspective on poverty. She speaks of the struggle to break the cycle of subsistence, deprivation and survival that characterizes the life of the world's poor, in particular women. She provides some answers: access to credit and productive resources, action, organisation and leadership.

Self-employed Indian women in Chennai also speak about the challenges they have faced – as well as their successes.

The interviewees are: Angela Kamara, West African Reduction of Maternal Mortality Organisation; Cecile Jackson, Gender Studies UEA Institute of Development Studies; and Elaben Bhatt, SEWA in India.

Programme 2
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