Marie Michael Library

605

DVD

Produced by Patricia Plattner, this powerful documentary is a portrait of the now-famous women's organization in India, the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), that holds to the simple yet radical belief that poor women need organizing, not welfare. It offers union membership to the illiterate street women who sell vegetables or who pick up paper scraps for recycling -- jobs that most men don't consider real work. A stunning success, SEWA now has a membership of more then 217,000 and its bank has assets of $4 million. Plattner's documentary is an important look at the power of grassroots global feminism.