Movement of Home Based Workers in South Asia
HomeNet South Asia is a network organisation of women homebased workers promoted by UNIFEM and SEWA. It was set up after the Kathmandu Declaration , formulated in an international conference convened in Nepal in year 2000. The formal launching of HomeNet South Asia was held on January 17, 2007 in the Conference “Women Work & Poverty Policy Conference on Home Based Workers of South Asia” which was inaugurated by Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh.
Facts & Figures
Global Scenario
A survey in seven countries revealed that Homebased workers represent between 10 and 25 per cent of the non-agricultural workforce ...
Who are Home Based Workers
Homebased workers are:
Own-account workers, and contributing family workers helping the own-account workers, involved in the production of goods and services for the market, ...
Training on Organizing , Leadership and Exposure Visit of Parivartan Programme For HBW's Leaders from Sri Lanka
Under the Inclusive Cities Programme, HomeNet South Asia has taken a step towards directly organizing and mobilizing homebased workers in Sri Lanka. Therefore to start up with the organizing process a study was conducted in three cities (Kurunegala, Kandy and Moratuwa) of Sri Lanka to identify the clusters and urban issues of homebased workers. The study highlighted the urban issues and the trades like food processing, dress making , handcrafting ,Wood crafting,etc out of which most of them are own account workers and some are piece rate workers. While sharing the findings of the study and mobilizing them , 12 potential leaders were identified who are going to visit Ahmedabad to take up Training on Organizing, leadership and exposure visit to Parivartan programme from 25th- 30th April,2013. The leaders attending the training would learn about organizing and mobilizing hbws around urban issues, communication tools, Leadership qualities, how a group functions around various interventions such as savings, livelihood,etc and CBO formation. These potential leaders after going back will orient other hbws and would start the process of mobilizing and formation of groups.
Homebased Workers Exposure to Slum Networking Project ( Parivartan Programme, Ahmedabad)
Exposure visit to Parivartan Programme was organized by Homenet South Asia (HNSA) in collaboration with Mahila Housing SEWA Trust (MHT) from 12th to 14th March 2013 in Ahmedabad for HBW’s group leaders from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh who are mainly engaged into different trades of Chain and bidi making, Leather and Hosiery products and packaging. The main objective of this programme was to build the capacity of the HBWs around CBO formation and Engaging with City Authorities and Departments in availing the civic amenities.
Parivartan programme led by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation in collaboration with Mahila Housing SEWA Trust, is a good model of public private partnership by having local NGOs and private sector to work together for the community development. . The Ahmedabad Parivartan (also known as Slum Networking Project) brings basic infrastructure services, including water and sanitation, in an affordable and sustainable way to the slums and chawls of the city. Besides infrastructural services to Slum dwellers, Parivartan also extends to upgrade the overall quality of life of community, once the services are in place. To achieve this major role was also played by the partner NGO; Mahila Housing SEWA Trust (MHT); through the ongoing community development and motivation.
Workshop on Outreach Programme for Maldives
On 20th February-2013, A workshop on “Outreach Programme “was organized in Male (Maldives) in collaboration with Sabah Maldives. The main purpose of organizing the workshop was to orient the organizations about the Outreach Programme. ( OUTREACH programme aims to organize the home based workers around livelihood and social security by organizing them in group, cater capability building programme and link them to market and to take the public services and benefits of schemes)
Around 15 representatives from various NGOs and Co-operatives participated in the workshop. The Workshop was inauragted by Hon. Minister Mr. Ahmed Mohamed, Ministry of Economic Development and he launched the findings of Baseline Survey of 356 Homebased workers(HBWs) conducted in the southern most atolls of the Maldives, namely Addu Atoll and Fuah Mulah . The main objective of the survey was to study the current livelihood of the homebased workers in Maldives.
The State Minister, Mr Ameen in his inaugural speech said, Maldivian people are industrious, skilled and hard working and mostly engaged into handicraft and food processing. Unfortunately the handicrafts sold in the market are not authentic Maldivian as they are imported from Indonesia and Thailand at very low rate, therefore market linkage is a big challenge for Maldivians. Because of this situation people are losing interest in the Maldivian crafts. Hence we see “SABAH” and “Outreach” a very timely initiative for the homebased workers of Maldives to prepare traditional craft.
After the Inagural session, Ms. Firoza Mehrotra, Director Planning and Monitoring of HomeNet South Asia (HNSA) explained the Definition of Homebased Workers in which she categorically explained about piece rate and own account workers as this was important to understand from the Maldivian perspective. Later on, she also narrated about Vision of HomeNet South Asia and how the foundations and pillars have been evolved. Thereafter, Regional Coordinator of HomeNet South Asia presented about Journey of HomeNet South Asia and its current programmes on Livelihood, Organizing, Social Security and Advocacy. Organizing and Working with homebased workers in South Asia for a decade gave a need to HNSA to work on skill enhancement and livelihood of Homebased Workers. As a result, programme on “Strengthening the Livelihood of homebased workers in SAARC Region” was given to SEWA and HNSA. The Programme led towards the formation of SABAH Maldives in Maldives for skill enhancement and livelihood of Maldivian homebased workers.
The second session was opened to know about the Organizations and their work. We found that most of the organizations engaged in food processing, agricultural and fewer in handicrafts. It was interesting to know that women felt a need to organize themselves to stand and compete in the market. During the discussions, we came to know about the initiative taken by local government by introducing Women Development Committee which is formed to identify their own needs. The committee elects its representative. It was inspiring to see many representatives from this committee in the workshop.
After hearing from the participants, “Outreach Programme” was explained in detail. The “Outreach Programme” is to identify and organize hbws to link with SABAH Maldives. The process of “Outreach Programme “execution was explained; which will be done by inviting the proposals from organizations through Newspaper advertisement.
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Message from Enforcer- HomeNet South Asia
Shri Renana Jhabvala
Received India Today Woman in Public Service award organised by India Today Woman's summit and Award 2013
(As approved by the Board of Trustees on 22.09.2012)
I. PURPOSE OF HOMENET SOUTH ASIA :
The structure of an organization or a network depends on what it’s purpose and strategies are.Though the broad purpose of HomeNet South Asia is to improve the lives and livelihoods of home based workers; it aims to function more as a network rather than an organization. The usual functions of a network are to benefit the network members by information sharing and learning; creating solidarity, removing isolation and facilitating networking; and advocacy by enhancing voice and visibility. However, in addition to these 3 classical functions of a network, HNSA also has a role in raising resources for itself and it’s members. However, it is not the purpose of HNSA to itself implement projects. It should aim to play it’s networking functions more effectively.
II. STRUCTURE OF HOMENET SOUTH ASIA:
HNSA is being envisaged as a network of (i) Membership Based Organisations (MBO) of home based workers (HBW), (ii) NGOs working with HBWs and (iii) country homenets (CHN). All the members will form the General Body of HNSA and will meet once a year. Since HNSA is already registered as a Trust in Mauritius, one will have to operate within the framework of the Trust Deed which does not permit HNSA to have more than I Enforcer and 4 trustees. In order to make HNSA more representational of it’s constituency and move towards becoming a MBO, all the MBO and CHN members will elect an Advisory Board every 3 years (see section IV below). As the name suggests it will advise the Board of Trustees, who are the principle decision makers.
Vision Statement
HomeNets in South Asia envisions a scenario in which Homebased Workers are visible, protected, promoted, empowered ..