Field Diary 2023: March

 A Glance Into The Lives Of Workers With Bite-Sized Stories From Factories, Homes & Communities

Nurturing Hope: International Women’s Day was marked by some greening effort by activists and workers associated with Cividep’s partner organisation Sadhana (pic above). Also, workers got to know more about POSH Act, Maternity Benefit Act, PF and ESI Acts, and grievance redressal mechanisms at a legal awareness programme conducted by advocate Ashwini Obulesh.

Defence Against Gender Violence: Learning self-defence is crucial to tackling violence in domestic settings. This was the unanimous conclusion reached by female electronics factory workers in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, after a recent film screening on the issue at Cividep’s local Worker Resource Center. But discussions on how such violence and oppressive gender roles are propagated beyond homes to workplaces, and how to tackle violence only yielded unanswered questions. The workers had after all spent three hours of their precious Sunday for the screening and had to rush back home to finish chores!

From Awareness To Action: Why does an important industrial cluster churning out electronic parts for international brands not have a dedicated ESI (employee state insurance) hospital? This was one of the questions raised after a social mapping exercise conducted among workers in Sriperumbudur to identify availability and accessibility of health facilities. Many workers learnt about the benefits of the scheme for the first time and lamented the distance to the nearest ESI dispensary. (Pic: Workers participate in social health mapping at the local Cividep office) 

Police & Puppets: It was an event on personal safety where a traditional puppet gave tips to the leather homeworkers of Ambur. At the puppet show organised by Cividep in Thuthipet village recently, workers got to know about how Women helpline 108 could come in handy in case of violence at home and workplaces. Police inspector Yuvarani encouraged the women to get over the fear of approaching police stations and get timely help.

Building Solidarity With Joy: They were happy to come together and get useful information. Such was their joy that some even wanted to break into a song. The Worker’s Forum event recently organised by Munnade, Samruddi, Sadhana, and Garment Labour Union to build solidarity, evoked a lot of warmth and confidence among the workers. “We were able to know more about women’s health and changes in food habits through Anupam’s talk in Kannada,” said a garment worker from Kanakapura. Another worker felt that the event was similar to a celebration at home. “We were so inspired that we wanted to sing on the stage,” said this Bengaluru-based garment worker.

Training Time: A select set of field investigators got trained on how to conduct a health research of garment workers under the STITCH project. Researchers Dr. Rajalakshmi, Deepak Nikarthil and Kaveri M.T led the training.

Images: Pramod Kumar, Gokhularaj
Text: Gokhularaj, Pramod Kumar, Deepak Nikarthil