Case5-August-2017

Domestic Workers Livelihood Enhancement Forum A pilot initiative of MEPMA by DHAN Foundation in Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation Visakhapatnam

DHAN Foundation in the Visakhapatnam region was initiated in 1998. Presently, the region consists of six federations with 1,617 SHGs covering 22,000 families in 122 slums and 33 wards of Visakhapatnam city. The objective of DHAN’s initiative is to reduce poverty by involving various stakeholders. Vizag is one among DHAN’s urban poverty reduction initiatives. Urban poverty is complex. The urban poor have many opportunities and choices when equated with their rural counterparts. The key to addressing urban poverty lies in matching the opportunities with better choices. DHAN attempted to address the poverty of the urban poor by organising the women in its Kalanjiam Community Banking Programme.

Through Kalanjiam, the community is organised and federated as registered autonomous bodies of people institutions and governed by the women leaders. These people institutions are sustainably being managed on their own. These federations together have community savings of Rs. 24.26 crores as on March 2017, and a bank loan outstanding of Rs. 12.82 crores. The total member loan outstanding is Rs. 34.74 crores. So far, the groups have issued 2.98 lakh loans to the members aggregating Rs. 4,689 crores. Most of the loans get used for augmenting their existing livelihoods

Other than the micro finance interventions, two federations had initiated the anaemia reduction programme, considering the intensity of the issue.

As a part of youth development, computer education and counselling centres have been promoted in the slums itself. All the people institutions together have jointly established SUHAM (Sustainable Healthcare Advancement) – Primary Health Care Clinic. This clinic ensures quality health care and reduces the health expenditure of the poor households in the city.

These federations are now enriching themselves to groom the leadership of women, thereby graduate them into the civil society organisation. It is at this juncture that the region started implementing development programmes such as health, education and skill building for empowering the women and ensuring sustainable development through Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas (MEPMA – A Government of AP Nodal Agency for Urban Poverty Alleviation). It envisages addressing urban poverty through the components of skill building and livelihoods advancement.

Overall Objective of the Project

Vizag is a greater city corporation with a population of 20 lakhs. Its service sector is growing at a very fast pace. Along with it grows the number of poor women engaged as domestic workers. Domestic workers represent an important and growing segment of the labour force, with a great majority of them being women. Engaged in a variety of services ranging from cleaning, washing, cooking and childcare, they perform a huge chunk of household chores for middle and upper middle classes. Since domestic help had become an integral part of urban households, the society should be sensitive to their emotional needs. Domestic work is an important source of regular earnings for the poor families with unskilled and illiterate women.

The objective is to increase the income of the maidservants by the formation of Common Interest Groups (CIGs) to increase their skill and knowledge, thereby increasing the quality of service as well as ensuring good earnings. The project will focus on evolving a replicable model with systems and processes; and then at the end of the period, the model will be finalised for replication in all the urban areas promoted by MEPMA. The project has been defined for one year (February 2017 - January 2018). During this project period, the mechanism for sustaining the initiatives will be evolved and the DHAN Foundation’s Vizag region will ensure the sustainability and continuity of the project with the involvement of the community.

Before getting into the collaboration for this project, we mapped the major livelihoods of our community in 2015 and found that 2,900 members have been leading their lives as domestic workers. A study on domestic workers (DM) also triggered the need for intervention in the livelihoods. Through this project, we make attempts to

• Provide identity to the servant maids by organising them in CIGs.
• Identify their health issues and work on it.
• Provide and ensure social security.

Activities under the project

Social Mobilisation

We organised a policy seminar for the stakeholders to create a positive orientation among them, especially among the domestic workers, Resident welfare associations, NGOs, other public representatives and associations on the objectives and outcomes of the project. This was followed by a survey and online updating of members. Analyses of the entire survey data lead to identifying opportunities for improving their livelihood prospects.

Through the initiative, identity cards were provided to the domestic workers. This promoted self-identity and assertiveness among them. It also brought dignity of labour through self-identity. The domestic workers were facilitated to form CIGs. One CIG was formed for every 50 domestic workers. So far, 50 CIGs have been promoted in all the federations. They select five office bearers as their representatives for each CIG. Capacity building training to office bearers of CIG was organised to strengthen their capabilities. Governance system was put in place in the CIG for sustaining the activity. The members made a voluntary contribution to continue and sustain this initiative. The CIG expectations of the house owners and the entitlements being offered by the government were deliberated.

As a part of the initiative, a survey was conducted for 2,500 domestic workers. Data analysis was completed for 2,275 members. Major observations of this survey outcome brought out many socio-economic dimensions of the domestic workers.

1. Domestic work of the women is classified into eight types; 43% of the domestic workers were engaged in cleaning work such as cleaning utilities and floor washing, 17% were engaged in cleaning and washing clothes, another 8% were working in a hotel, 7% were doing cooking alone, 6% were doing both house work and cooking and another 5% were washing clothes. As child care is not a permanent opportunity, only 3% of the respondents were doing this work.
2. In age-wise classification, 37% of the respondents were in the3140 years category, followed by 26% in the 41-50 years category, 24% were below 30 years, 11% were in the age group of 50-60 years and 2% were more than 60 years. The respondents below 30 years have a high potential for skill upgradation. About 63% of the respondents aged 31-50 years were in their most productive age. They can learn more skills in the existing work to increase their income.
3. About 68% of the respondents were illiterates and 14% had studied up to 5th standard. These together form 82% of the domestic workers. Only 8% had studied above 8th standard and can be imparted new skills. This also reveals the fact that illiteracy is one of the main reasons for the women to take up this occupation.
4. About 45% of the domestic workers were engaged in one house, followed by 21% working in two houses and 13% in three houses, 5% in four houses, and 1% working in 5 houses.
5. About 16% of the respondents were widows and another 4% were single women. They were the sole bread winners of their families.
6. About 88% were Hindus, followed by 9% Christians and the remaining 3% were Muslims.
7. About 46% reside in their own house, another 50% lived in rented houses and only 4% lived in leased houses. In the development aspect, housing or loan for a house is possible. Lease product can be developed to reduce rental expenditure.
8. About 60% formed a majority paying Rs.1,000-2,000 as rent, another 30% paid rent between Rs.2,000- 3,000. These two categories together form 90% of the total respondents, 6% paid up to Rs.4,000 and another 4% up to Rs.5,000. This 10% of the workers had sent their children to work or had regular source of monthly income.
9. Among the 95% having ration cards, 99.5% of the respondents had Below Poverty Line ration cards and only 0.5% of the domestic workers had above poverty line ration card. As many as 5% did not have ration cards at all. They sought assistance to get ration cards.
10. On the aspect of wage for the domestic workers, 7% earned below Rs.1,000/, 47%earned Rs. 1,000-2,000, 19% earned Rs.2,001 to Rs.3,000, 10.5% earned Rs.3,001-4,000, 7.5% earned Rs.4,001-5,000/-, 3% earned Rs.5,001-6,000/-, and 6% earned above Rs.6,000/-. As many as 40% expressed that they earned extra wages for extra work and 60% did not earn any extra wage for extra work.
11. About 78% of the domestic workers’ family income was below Rs. 10,000/-; among them, 38% earned below Rs.5,000/-. 21% families earned Rs.10,000- 20,000/- and 1% earned more than Rs.20,000/- .
12. Among the 78% of the families earning below Rs.10,000/-, 70% of them had their expenditure below Rs.10,000/-. It shows that whatever was earned was being spent. They have limited scope to afford any investment or quality education and health services.
13. About 35% of the respondents’ monthly expenditure was below Rs.5,000 and 55% of the respondents’ monthly expenditure was Rs.5,001-10,000/-. Rest of the 9% had monthly expenditure above Rs.10,000/-. In this, 49% led their life at less than Rs.6,000/- monthly expenditure.
14. Regarding their health, 20% of the respondents reported back pain as a major health problem, 52% suffered had a single health problem and another 35% had more than two health problems. This is really a disturbing factor. Only 13% have expressed that they do not face any health problems.
15. About 81% do not have health insurance coverage and only 19% have insurance coverage that too for
16. Majority of the maids (68%) told that they were taking food on time, while 32% were not taking food on time. Reasons stated for not taking food on time are work load or no time for eating.
17. The respondents sought training for the betterment of their work, cordial relationship with owners, technological upgradation, preventive healthcare awareness, etc.
18. On the formation of CIG, 94% of them were interested in it and only 6% expressed their unwillingness for the same. Reasons attributed for their disinterest were having small babies, problems in the house, age problem, etc.,
19. About 17% of the workers showed interest to take up new skills through skill upgradation. Another 60% were keen to improve their work skills, while rest of the 23% was not interested to learn new/additional skills.
20. Expectations from the government: 48% expected own house, 21% of the workers expected schemes such as welfare board enrollment for domestic workers, pension and access to all types of government schemes
21. About 67% (majority) of the domestic workers were happy with this work and 33% were unhappy. On work satisfaction front, 67% expressed happiness with this work, 16% were not happy and 17% were neutral.
22. About 21% insisted on identity cards issued to them as unorganised sector workers, another 17% demanded leave or holidays by the government, welfare boards enrollment and ID cards. Remaining people demanded a different combination of services from the government.
23. While taking up this project initiative, we started with an assumption that majority of the domestic workers would have had long years of experience. However, the data conveyed that 44% of the domestic workers have been in the service for the last five years. It showed that they had got into this work recently and 33% of the domestic workers were working from 6 to 10 years. This is one-third of the domestic workers. Both these groups together form 77%, a bulk of the total work force. This showed that majority of the workforce in the sector had got into this sector in the last 10 years, 11% had 11 to 15 years of experience and 10% had 16 to 20 years experience in this work and only 5% of the domestic workers had more than 20 years work experience. It was found that the workers who had below five years of experience had the potential for developing new skills and other interactions while50% could not go for any other work as they were uneducated.
24. About 33% worked for about 1 to 3 hours, 13% worked for 2 hours per day, 54% for more than 3 hours to 12 hours, and 26% worked for 4 to 6 hours. This shows that one-fourth of them were working for more than six hours per day.
25. Regarding holidays/leave, 62% got leave based on their need, while the rest 38% expressed that they do not take leave fearing that they may lose their job.

Skill Enhancement

Skills upgradation training had to be organised providing additional skills to the identified target groups. Housekeeping training will be imparted to all the 2500 domestic workers to increase the quality, technical knowhow, human relations, etc.. Each batch of 40 members will undergo 15 days training from August to December 2017. These training sessions will be conducted through training centres to be established, one each at the federations.

Domestic workers would be trained in maintaining personal hygiene, developing intrapersonal communication skills, understanding components of the urban meal, managing urban kitchens, serving cooked food in a formal environment, handling domestic pets, and handling kitchen gardens, electricity and electrical appliances and providing first-aid. This course is planned to be a comprehensive one aimed at enhancing household management skills, a sense of responsibility in the workplace, improved attention to details and time management and organisational skills. The learners will gain confidence and their competence will increase. It will assist household employers to find domestic help with the right skill sets, thus fostering a mutually beneficial relationship between the employer and the worker.

Ensuring Entitlements

The domestic workers were encouraged to open bank accounts. This in turn would help to ensure direct access to financial inclusion. Access to credit through banks was made for establishing self-employment. Through the project, we propose to organise health camps. These camps will help to identify their health problems. General health screenings will be conducted for all the members to identify the health risks and to know the health status and identify and send them for referrals and health insurance ignition.

The Vizag region has made a small beginning to organise the domestic workers and empower them to access the entitlements. As the urban opportunities grow, this section of the working class grows in large numbers. They all deserve the need to be cared and served by the system. This initiative proposes to address the needs of the lower stratum of the working class by bringing in the stakeholders. Addressing their health issues will help them stay physically fit and contribute to their family and the nation. Hopefully, this will help address the issues faced by the domestic workers.