A women-led federation building economic power for informal women workers – through cooperatives.
In 2024, SCF launched the Sehbhaagi Shikshan Karyakram, a sustained fellowship for elected leaders of women’s cooperatives-collectives. Fellows pause, reflect, and build the skills to govern their collectives with confidence.
“सेवा की बोर्ड बैठक के दौरान मैंने उसकी प्रक्रिया को बारीकी से समझा और अब अपनी बोर्ड मीटिंग भी उसी तरह संचालित करने की योजना बना रही हूँ।”
SCF works as a Women’s Enterprise Support System (WESS) for informal women workers’ cooperatives. The five pillars below are how that support takes shape in practice.
We strengthen leadership and governance of women’s cooperatives through sustained learning, building confidence and institutional strength over time.
A long-term leadership journey for elected cooperative members, creating space for reflection, peer learning, and deeper governance practice.
We work with women’s collectives to build fair, workable pathways to markets, reducing risk and strengthening their control over how they engage.
We bring collective experience into policy conversations, advocating for frameworks that recognise and support informal women workers’ enterprises.
We work with informal women workers to form, strengthen, and renew cooperatives, accompanying each collective’s journey on its own terms.
Women farmers building collective control over inputs and markets.
Women-led dairy cooperatives balancing daily enterprise with shared governance.
Artisan cooperatives connecting traditional craft to markets, collectively.
Making invisible care work visible through collective organisation.
Building collective identity in sectors traditionally closed to women.
Women's financial cooperatives building economic security at every level.
Stories, conversations, and reflections from informal women workers, in their own words.
Over the past three years, we have documented the lives and work of women cooperative members across sectors. These are some of their stories.
Women cooperative and collective leaders in conversation, on work, governance, and collective life.
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