Submit a tip
Do you have info to share with HuffPost reporters? Here’s how.
Contributor
Ela Bhatt
Pioneer in women’s empowerment and grassroots development in India; founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association and the Cooperative Bank of SEWA
Ela Bhatt is known as India's ‘gentle revolutionary’; she is a pioneer in women’s empowerment and grassroots development, and the founder of the more than 1 million-strong Self-Employed Women’s Association in India.
She is also the founder of India’s first women’s bank, the Cooperative Bank of SEWA, and was a member of the Indian Parliament from 1986-89.
Ela Bhatt has been a member of The Elders since the group was founded in 2007. Profoundly influenced by Gandhian thinking, she advocates local, grassroots solutions for those who are poor, oppressed or suffering the effects of violent conflict.