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Entrepreneurship: A Need for Survival
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Entrepreneurship, says Bhatt, comes out
of a need for survival. Ninety-four percent all women in India are
self-employed and work to support their families. However, given the
daily threats to life faced by India's poor women due to lack of money
and assets, saving money and turning those savings into capital seem
an almost impossible task. Describing the many ways that India's women
economize on food and other resources, Bhatt says, "Women know saving
as a form of suffering. For without ... constant self-denial, one
cannot save.... And the greater your capacity for suffering, the greater
your chances of survival."
About eighty percent of India's women are economically active, but
because they are largely self-employed and so lack employers, they are
"invisible to the economic plan of the nation." SEWA is committed
to helping self-employed women gain visibility and rights. "Unless they are
recognized as workers and brought into the mainstream of the economy," says
Bhatt, "there cannot be an effective economic policy for the nation."
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