MEMBERSHIP BASED ORGANIZING OF POOR WOMEN Reflections After An Exposure and Dialogue Program with SEWA in Gujarat, India, January 2005

In January, 2005, a group of analysts and activists met in Gujarat at the invitation of SEWA to discuss papers presented at a conference on Membership Based Organizations of the Poor. The details of the conference are available at http://wiego.org/ahmedabad/. Somewhat unusually for academic conferences of this type, the discussions were preceded by an exposure to the lives of individual women members of SEWA who are themselves involved in the organizing activities of this membership based organization of the poor. The technical papers presented at the conference are available on the conference website, and will be published in due course in an academic press volume in the usual way. However, participants were also asked to record their reflections on the exposure. This compendium brings together these reflections, a rich and wide ranging set of responses to a brief glimpse into the reality of the lives of working poor women.