MIRAI CHATTERJEE Co-ordinator (Social Security), SEWA

It's 10 on a Monday morning, and Mirai Chatterjee is sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor of SEWA's (Self-Employed Women's Association) basement office in Ahmedabad, offering an all-faith prayer along with 25 of her colleagues. After the prayer, the women will spend another five minutes on yoga and physical exercise, and then set off for the day's work, which could range from dealing with a woman's health problem to convincing one to buy an insurance to visiting day care centres. "We never have a typical day," says Chatterjee, a tall, light-skinned woman, dressed in a khadi saree and her hair tied in a bun over the back of her head. "When I start the day, I have a plan, but whether I stick to it is another issue," she adds, starting on a flight of stairs to her 10x15 feet, ground-floor office.

By any measure, the 44-year-old Chatterjee has work unlike anybody else's. As the coordinator of SEWA's social security initiatives, she's responsible for organising healthcare, child care, insurance services and shelter to some 5 lakh poor women, and their husbands and children in 13 districts of Gujarat. SEWA's insurance programme, called VimoSEWA, is the largest micro-insurance programme in the world, and covers 1,12,112 women members, their husbands and children. Its integrated insurance package covers everything from life to livelihood to assets. Annual premium? Rs 85 for the basic scheme, which covers hospitalisation risks up to Rs 2,000, accidental death insurance of Rs 40,000 and household cover of Rs 10,000. Two other schemes with annual premia of Rs 200 and Rs 400 offer greater benefits.

What's unique about SEWA's insurance programme is that it, like its other initiatives, is run entirely by women. Currently there are eight coordinators and 13 karyakartas, or team leaders, who manage a field force of 120 aagewans, which is Gujarati for leaders. Earning Rs 50 a day, the aagewans ply the small villages and districts of the state, selling insurance. Each aagewan has an annual target of 1,200 policies, and they meet at the central office in Ahmedabad every Monday and Thursday for servicing claims, review and direction. Says Shilpa Pandya, Coordinator, VimoSEWA: "It is not easy to sell insurance, so aagewans are specially trained for selling the concept of insurance."

The biggest barrier, as Chatterjee has discovered, is simply economic. Many women, especially in a lean or drought year, find it difficult to pay the premium. So SEWA is developing alternate systems like linking savings and insurance so that the women save the year round in small monthly installments towards the annual premium. They are also encouraged to put in a fixed deposit of Rs 1,000 with the SEWA Bank, the interest on which goes towards paying the premium, ensuring long-term continuous insurance coverage. Deposit-linked insurance schemes entitle women to maternity benefits and older women to reimbursements for cataract operations-something no insurance company covers.

But it's not so much a stand-alone insurance policy as a comprehensive social security net that SEWA provides. In fact, when Ela Bhatt, or Elaben as she is more popularly known, started her grassroots movement in 1972 for women engaged in the informal economy, the goal was to organise them to achieve full employment and self-reliance. She found that it wasn't enough if her organisation focused on just one side of a poor woman's needs. For the poor to be economically productive, health care, child care, shelter and cover against uncertainties were required. That's why SEWA today offers everything from healthcare and child care to banking.

The thrust of SEWA Health is on providing simple, life-saving health information, with a focus on disease prevention and promotion of well-being. Local women, especially traditional midwives, are trained to be "barefoot doctors" and to provide services to the very poor, particularly in areas not serviced by governmental or other non-government organisations. Day care for children is an integral part of the service because it frees up the women to take up a job or do business. SEWA's studies, for instance, show that women's income increases by 50 per cent when child care is provided.

The cooperative isn't an end in itself for Chatterjee. It is a means to her goal of insurance for each of SEWA's 7 lakh members

The SEWA Bank, on the other hand, not just offers credit, but savings options and insurance. Says Jayashree Vyas, Managing Director, SEWA Bank: "We see ourselves as lifetime friends of our women members and look at providing services catering to their lifecycle needs." Child care, healthcare and insurance combined make for a potent empowering tool. Notes Chatterjee, mother to three daughters: "It is unlikely that one without the other will help the poor reach their goal of full employment and self-reliance."

Chatterjee's tryst with social work occurred 30 years ago when she was a student at Mumbai's Cathedral and John Connon School. To do her bit for the poor, she would visit slums to help out children during weekends. Even as recently as the second week of December, she and a German government official spent three days in the house of an Ahmedabad construction worker and a VimoSEWA aagewan, Hiraben, to better understand issues of poverty and social security. During those three days, Chatterjee worked alongside Hiraben at a construction site. "We try to connect with the women on the ground as we have to keep our ears and minds open to constant information," she says as a matter of fact.

Chatterjee first visited SEWA in 1982 as a post-graduate student of public health at the John Hopkins University in the US. She was "moved" by the idea of a poor women's labour union and responded when Elaben made a general call for help. She signed up as a coordinator of the healthcare team in 1984. Eight years later, SEWA Bank established VimoSEWA to support women's livelihood and complement SEWA's healthcare work. Chatterjee became the coordinator of all the social security programmes in 1999 and a year later, with its membership swelling, SEWA insurance became an independent unit.

Having proved that insurance programmes organised by the poor for themselves are viable, Chatterjee wants to turn it into a cooperative programme, like SEWA Bank and SEWA Health and Child Care. "Nowadays, I am obsessed with the idea of setting up of an insurance cooperative," she says. But for Chatterjee, the cooperative isn't an end in itself. Rather, it's only a means to her goal of insurance for each and every of SEWA's seven lakh members spread over seven states of India. "I wouldn't be satisfied with anything less," she says.

Lucky, the poor village women of India.