Clinton calls social activist Ela Bhatt as one of her ‘heroines’
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has identified India's eminent social activist Ela Bhatt as one of her "heroines".
"I have a lot of heroes and heroines around the world," Clinton said yesterday, adding that one of them is Ela Bhatt, who started an organization called the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in India many years ago.
"She was a very well-educated woman who had the options available to those in her class with her intellectual ability, but she chose to devote her life to organising the poorest of the poor, women who worked in fields, who sold vegetables, who were domestics, who struggled to eke out a living for themselves and their families, women who were considered the last to eat, the least important," Clinton said while speaking very highly of Bhatt.
In 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a stop in Mumbai during her three-day tour of India at the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). Primarily a trade union for undocumented women workers, SEWA provides a wide range of services to its members, including a full range of financial services through SEWA Bank, group insurance, and skills training. SEWA was founded by Ela Bhatt. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Magsaysay Award and an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Harvard University.
Clinton is no stranger to SEWA or what it seeks to accomplish. She first came in contact with SEWA 14 years ago on a trip to India as first lady. Since then, she has made several visits to its offices in Ahmedabad and Mumbai.
Based in the city of Ahmedabad, India, SEWA is a trade union for poor women who eke out a living selling vegetables, recycling trash, hand-rolling cigarettes, and working at other marginal occupations. Bhatt founded SEWA inspired by the work of Mahatma Gandhi. Since then, it has organized women into 70 different trade cooperatives, and has offered insurance and health care to its members. The SEWA bank has assets of $4 million and makes loans to women who want to grow their businesses or improve their living conditions.
A graduate of Gujarat University, Bhatt has served as a member of the Indian Parliament, as a member of the Planning Commission of India, and as chair of the National Commission on Self-Employed Women. She is a member of the board of trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation and chair of the International Alliance of Street Vendors.
Bhatt's publications include "Profiles of Self-Employed Women" (1975) and "Grind of Work" (1989). Among her many awards are the Right Livelihood Award for "changing the human environment" (1984) and the Asia Society Award as "a builder of bridges between Asians and Americans" (2000).
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