SEWA's trainings are driven by the core belief that everyone has potential and ability but due to adverse circumstances, women in the informal sector are sometimes not able to achieve their goals. Our training programmes are a collective approach to overall development of women and our capacity building programmes cut across all the requirements.

Our training programmes help to develop women’s self-esteem, confidence and leadership skills. Local women leaders understand the power of collective struggle and organize to take the SEWA movement forward. Trainings help women build their capacity, both technical as well as managerial. They also discuss the importance of women workers in society and the struggle for equality. These training programmes help raise the women’s awareness levels. They also learn to share information and experiences and develop a sense of pride in themselves and their organization.

Given the illiteracy level in India and amongst our members, all our training methods are based on interactive approaches. The participants are involved from the very beginning in the training through activities like role-play, discussions, exercises, drawings, songs and games. We believe in “learning by doing” and this philosophy guides the classes and field exposures.

Our capacity building programmes can be categorized as leadership, technical, exposure and dialogue and other training programmes. The details of the same are mentioned below:

a) Leadership Programmes

1. Member Education

2. SEWA Movement / Basic Leadership Training

3. Kadam (Advanced Leadership) Training

4. Training of Trainers (TOT)

b) Technical / Professional Programmes

1. Rural Association / Cooperative Training

2. Research Training

3. Communication Training

      i.   Writing Training

      ii.  Photography Training

      iii. Video Replay Training

c) Exposure and Dialogue Programmes

d) Other Training Programmes

1. SEWA Orientation

2. Organizing Training

3. Member Subscription Training

4. Gender Training

5. Social Issue Training

6. Training Management

7. Tailor-made Training

8. Adolescent Girls Training

SEWA has various sister organizations which are autonomous but integrated such as the Urban, Rural Union, Federation of Co-operatives, Social Security, Marketing Support, SEWA Bank, SEWA Bharat. During different training programmes, the training team takes expertise from these sister organizations for enriching the training programmes and vice versa.