The history of the Gujarat State Women’s SEWA Cooperative Federation is rooted in SEWA’s dual strategy of struggle and development. Since SEWA’s inception as a trade union in 1972, its members – marginalised, self-employed women workers in the informal economy – have fought for their rights and recognition (struggle), while simultaneously building their own alternative institutions for livelihoods and social security (development).
Out of this dual approach grew the cooperative movement within SEWA. Informal women workers across diverse trades began organizing themselves into cooperatives. These cooperatives created fair and dignified employment and also addressed women’s specific needs for sustainable livelihoods, collective bargaining power, and access to markets and capital.
By the early 1990s, it became clear that while each cooperative was rooted in its own trade, they all faced common challenges: managerial capacity, financial sustainability, and access to larger markets. In April 1992, more than 900 women leaders from SEWA cooperatives came together in Ahmedabad to present these issues to the Union Minister of Cooperatives. Their demand was clear: women-led cooperatives needed a collective institution of their own to strengthen, support, and sustain them.
Thus, on 31st December 1992, the Gujarat State Women’s SEWA Cooperative Federation was born – the first women’s cooperative federation in India.
Since then, the Federation has carried forward SEWA’s values of integrity, social justice, communal harmony, and simplicity. It has worked to empower women’s cooperatives not just as economic enterprises but also as vehicles of social change – embodying SEWA’s vision of “struggle and development” for informal women workers’ full employment and self-reliance.
Today, with over 32 years of collective action, SCF continues to build a strong ecosystem for women’s cooperatives.
Holistic empowerment of informal and self-employed women workers, within collectives and co-operatives.
To work with collectives that are run by, with, and for informal women workers to help them achieve full employment and self-reliance at the collective and the member level.
SEWA Cooperative Federation is a secondary-level cooperative that works as a Women’s Enterprise Support System (WESS). Our role is to strengthen the shared systems that informal women workers’ collective enterprises need to grow, to sustain themselves and respond to change on their own terms.
As a WESS, we operate as a connective layer. We support leadership development, enterprise planning, financial systems, and visibility, while also engaging with institutions and policy spaces that influence how cooperatives function. This helps women’s collective enterprises respond to markets and regulation carrying that burden alone.
We work with long-standing member cooperatives as well as with collectives that are newly formed or in the process of revival. Support evolves based on where a collective is in its journey and on the priorities articulated by women leaders themselves.
Leadership development, cooperative education, and enterprise skills rooted in lived experience.
Strengthening democratic processes, decision-making practices, and accountability within collectives.
Supporting enterprise growth, market access, and viability across sectors.
Building systems for planning, sustainability, and preparedness in uncertain conditions.
Documenting practice, generating evidence, and engaging in policy processes that affect women’s enterprises.
Supporting visibility, storytelling and collective voices at multiple levels.
Together, these elements form a support ecosystem that remains responsive to informal women worker’s realities and grounded in cooperative principles.
SEWA Cooperative Federation is a federation of women’s cooperatives across diverse forms of informal work. These sectors reflect the realities of women’s labour—often undervalued, fragmented, and shaped by local conditions—but organised through collective enterprise.
Working across multiple sectors allows the Federation to learn how cooperatives function in different economic and social contexts, while remaining rooted in shared principles of ownership, democratic decision-making, and mutual support.
Today, the Federation works with women’s collective enterprises across the following sectors:
Women farmers and producers engaged in cultivation, allied activities, and agri-based enterprises, often navigating climate variability, input access, and market uncertainty.
Women-led dairy cooperatives involved in milk production and related activities, balancing daily enterprise operations with collective management and leadership.
Artisan cooperatives engaged in traditional and contemporary crafts, where collective organisation supports production, quality control, and access to markets.
Women working in service-based cooperatives such as cleaning, childcare, and home-based services, organising work that is often informal and invisibilised.
Women workers in labour-intensive sectors, including construction and other forms of manual work, where cooperatives create collective identity and bargaining power.
Women’s financial cooperatives that support savings, credit access, and financial decision-making, strengthening economic security at the household and collective level.
Together, these sectors reflect the breadth of women’s work within the informal economy and the role of cooperatives in creating shared ownership, stability, and voice across different forms of labour.
Our strength lies in informal women worker leaders who rise from the grassroots. Guided by experienced professionals, our team works shoulder-to-shoulder with women cooperative members.
