Name: Minal M.

Gomase Roll No: ur18039

Class: MBA (RM) Section: A
Assignment Type: Essay Assignment
Theme: Women’s Economic Empowerment and My Journey with Self-Employed Women’s
Association
Speaker: Mr. Shree Kant Kumar
Date: 23.03.2019

Women’s Economic Empowerment and My Journey with Self-Employed Women’s

Association

1. Summary:

Mr. Shree Kant Kumar, CEO of National Insurance Vimo SEWA (Self Employment Women
Association) co-operative Ltd, enlightened us on economic empowerment of women along with
that he briefed on his experience with Self-Employed Women’s Association. He focused on
following key area throughout the session-

1.1 Women Empowerment

This is the theme on which SEWA is working. The journey with SEWA started in 1972 in
Ahmadabad, Gujarat. So starting with how it came to existence, a lady inspired by Mahatma
Gandhi in the movement of textile labors, she also joined the organization where in late 60’s she
realized that the entire women work force is getting suffered. She recognized that how women
are getting unrecognized. Gender equality was not there at grass root level. Data shows 94%
Indian workforce is in informal sector. Formal sector is contributing more than 60% of the GDP.
In 1972 they started the bank working for and managed by poor women.

Economic empowerment of women in SEWA has played a major role. It included ownership,
management and it also used by women workforce and the profit gained were used for their own
capacity building. Currently they are promoting more than 120 social enterprises.

1.2 Social Enterprise

From late 80’s, Micro finance movement came into the picture. This wave became so hard that
destructed the whole social enterprises. So SEWA focuses on the social factors that influence the
success of the social enterprises. These social factors are of three dimensions which are caste,
gender and religion. These factors try to give them scope for capacity building and increasing the
decision making capacity. Often these aspects are left untouched as it very complex and difficult

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to address in a one goal. It tries to make it more holistic by according financial education to these
enterprises because without financial knowledge, even if they have capital they won’t be able to
optimally utilize their capital.

1.3 Gender Perspective

It is very important to consider the gender perspective because it is a multidimensional issue and
consists of the important questions like why women are unable to access the services, what are
the barriers, and problems of accessibility. Understanding this crucial problem is important to
understand the issue. Women constitute 50% of the population and they cannot be left behind. It
is important to realize the immense potential this half of the population carries and use them to
get optimal results.

1.4 Future Emerging Trends

The present trends include the coming up of new startups for social enterprises. One of such
example is Edible Spoon. The donor agencies are the philanthropic based companies like Tata
Trust, Azim Premji etc. As in 2018-19, Indian GDP is increasing at a rate of 7.3% and if the rate
continues to grow in this pace India will be a developed nation sooner rather than later. Post 80s
and 90s the investment in the social enterprises has increased significantly. There is shift in
considerable number of opportunity in the country and across the country. So it has been a
crucial factor to cash in on the opportunities.

2. Critical Reflection:

This session was enriched with exposure to organization SEVA, work area, principles and its
approaches. The principles of highlighted the facts how a women driven social enterprise can
succeed. Along with it gave the students a timeline scenario about the paradigm shift in social
enterprises in India. Starting from very less investments in 80s and 90s to expanding in the
present age, the social enterprises are having sufficient funds to invest. It introduced the actual
definition of women empowerment. It not only means the financial literacy but it means the
holistic development of the women. Contributing 50% of the population, without women it is not
possible to flourish any enterprise. The enterprises, especially the social enterprises must be
gender sensitive and do a thorough study on all the problems that the women are facing for their
growth and success. The session threw a light on a positive picture of the social enterprises,
telling that the sector is booming along with booming investments and it is increasing on higher
level day by day.

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 3. Discussion

The discussion started by raising the query that what are the factors behind booming
cooperatives in Gujarat as most of the social enterprises are from Gujarat, replying to the same
Mr. Kumar focused on the democratic structure of a cooperative. These grass root level
institutions have one vote for one person irrespective of their number of shares. Putting the
example of Amul, the speaker also added that, maybe the other states were not able to adapt the
model that the Gujarat cooperatives are following because despite all the international
companies, Amul is still one of the biggest players in the dairy industry. The next question rose
asking about the best of SEWA enterprise. Answering the same according to him all the financial
services under SEVA are working at its best as it is very easy for a financial service to scale up
and it has less complexity as compared to other sectors. Sharing his experience in insurance
sector, the speaker started his answer by saying that the things are changed now. The business
potentials are now transformed into real business. Along with the development of infrastructure,
more companies are going to rural areas and they are seeking for business opportunities there.
Some of these companies are extensively approaching and the digital finance is going to be a big
trend over there. Some insurance companies are really investing into the rural sector. However,
according to him selling the insurance in the rural area is not an easy task.

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