SEWA Academy is the focal point for all of SEWA’s training, capacity building, research and communication efforts. SEWA Academy functions as our member’s ‘UNIVERSITY’, providing our members their first introduction to a formal learning environment. It is the organizational wing that is responsible for basic membership education and for capacity building, leadership training, communication and research.

A movement requires an ideological framework and a clear direction understood by all its members. All participants in the movement must have a common understanding of the vision and the strategy. Moreover, in a grassroots movement like SEWA, leadership cannot be imposed from above. It must blossom from below so that the organization can remain dynamic, effective, and unified. To evoke and inspire such grassroots leadership, education is fundamental. Besides education and capacity building, it is also important to understand the lives and work of self employed women and carry that understanding to the women themselves and to policy makers, activists, academics, and the general public. It is in response to these needs that the SEWA Academy was created in 1991.