QUESTION TIME: Can you tell us the name of one person supported by your project?

Margaret Mumbua, is a 38 year old mother of four girls and a domestic care worker living in Mukuru kwa Reuben, Nairobi Kenya . Mumbua works as a domestic care worker in different houses in Nairobi area every day of the week. Her work involves laundry, cleaning dishes and houses. “This job is tiring, we have to carry buckets of wet clothes up, over three flights of stairs to the hanging lines. It is tiring, but we must do it because we need the money to feed our families” Says Margaret

Margaret doing dishes in one of her employer's homes

On average, she earns KES 250 per day ($2.5). She uses this money to buy food for her family. Margaret says the money barely meets the basic needs of her family.We aim to change this! Through the EU funded promoting livelihoods and Inclusion of vulnerable women domestic workers and women small-scale traders project, Margaret and other domestic workers are receiving knowledge on their rights, basic technical, advocacy and negotiation skills, access to financial information, advocacy and building relevant corporate capacity and networking linkages that  will impact positively upon their income and improve their access to social services like health care and retirement benefits.

Congratulation Caroline for doing this facinating work for the rights of domestic workers. We here in india have started engaging larger civil society and trade unions to demand a comprehesive national policy for domestic workers. We would look forward to learn from your experonce. Please let me know if we can get in touch with your policy team.

warmly

chandan 

Thank you Chandan, yes it would be great to  get in touch and learn more on how the comprehensive national policy for domestic workers is coming along. There must be alot that we can learn to improve our work in Kenya.

NIYONSENGA Rose, from INEZA VSLA Group based in Nyabugogo Cell, Kigali Sector, Nyarugenge District is 24 years old and a single mother of 1 child. Before she was introduced to YIES project and joined a VSLA group, she traded in poor quality Chinese shoes on the streets of Kigali with a capital of about Frw 5,000 (7 USD).

We street venders commonly known as “wazunguzayi” are prohibited from trading on the streets because authorities say we steal customers from traders who sale the same products from their shops and market stalls; that we do not pay taxes; and that we facilitate theft, disturb the traffic and peace of the city. As a result, our business items are often  times confiscated and and sometimes we are detained, as a means to frighten us from street vending”.

Her Voluntary Saving and Lending Association (VSLA) was started on May 24, 2015 with 30 members. Rose is one of the members that benefited from the VSLA loan from their group and has since grown her business“…I have grown my business 8 fold because I now use 40,000 frws to purchase shoes, thanks to the loan from my VSLA group that I acquired in September. I have also stopped trading in the third class Chinese shoes and now trade in 2nd class Taiwanese shoes”. Besides growth of her business, she is able to meet basic household needs including feeding her family, paying mutual health insurance, house rent, and other every-day-life needs.

The project approach involves target setting by every VSLA member and encourages beneficiaries to have a clear vision of where they want to be. Rose has big dreams including buying a plot of land to set up a house in her home town, and buying a business stall in the Nyabugogo public market. Since joining the VSLA group, Rose accessed 2 loans from her VSLA group; Frws 20,000 and Frw 40,000. She has retreated from the street and started trading in front of her house, where, even if not gazetted as business premises, it is a lot safer because it is easier to find understanding from the community authorities where she stays, than from city police.

Mr. Pathak is a 55 year old 'painter' living in Kharguli, Assam - A north eastern state of India. He had migrated to the city in the year of 1979 from a far flung rural pocket of state - 'Sarthebari of Barpeta district. He lives with his wife, a son and a daughter. He has been instrumental in training of emeging new generation of informal workers of his native districts and that has resulted in developing skills of 30 youth and empowering them as a potential painter. 

He says that there are about 200 registered workers in the Kharguli area alone and many of them have been availing the schemes ment for 'informal workers' by the Government. However he has vision to form a larger informal workers collectives of Painter which may emerge as strong workers organisation, but at the same time he also sees there are many hurdles for same; like Lack of proper office set-up for organisation in city and the recent fraction among workers who form the major workforce.of organisation he is trying to build!

Mr. Pathak says ‘the worker group has been visiting the Labour Commissioner office and demanding permanent places for office setups, but organisation is yet to experience successes due to local government reluctance in recognising or giving legal recognition to workers' organisation. But he believes that if workers organisation get more empower and strengthen, the government would start paying attention to our demand. 

Talking about sSTEP -A partner of ActionAid Association, he says the organisation has been very helpful. sSTEP helps them in every ways by providing training and capacitate them from time to time with information’s and helping them by applying Insurance schemes and networking with Labour commissioner. He feels that a strong worker organisation would help in accessing their rights as a worker, and ensure decent work. He feels that it is an important to set labour standards in protecting workers employed in Informal economy. 

Dear partners, thanks for posting these very interesting stories. If you agree, we propose you to use them for the "Stories from Beneficiaries" section on the IESF Group, so they will be also available here. Please, let us know about it!

Hi Francesco,

We are okay with Margaret's story being posted on the ' stories from beneficiaries' section

Regards

Caroline

Rosa Lopez, Oruro - Bolivia

Mrs. Rosa Lopez Perez, 51 years old is a beneficiary of the project "Production with Education, an alternative for Decent Work in Social Inclusion" which runs the FAUTAPO Foundation, she belongs to the category of food, is currently engaged in marketing filled morning and afternoon sells sausages with potatoes and fried chicken on a provisional since half a block from his home.She started her productive activity together with his mother and sister later married to start a new life, but unfortunately her husband began to drink alcohol, so no longer supported him financially for this reason had to start the business than before I had left to get married, he started selling fillings, as the money was not enough to keep their children in the evenings began selling sausages with potatoes, early he began to fry in a small burner and subsequently by the need was to diversify Cart products a small fast food bought to give a better look to the products offered and beginning to offer fried chicken.She manages to keep his entire family consists of four children, two men and two women, two of her children are independent and she is in charge of two children who are currently studying in school, her husband in the last population census was conducted census as indigent person because his vice led him to live in the streets.The beneficiary does not have any kind of instruction was only in school until second grade so it is difficult to learn to perform some calculations. Not being part of the association's market area does not have a set for the sale of their products so space market traders sometimes do not let you sell and market their products have to ambulate with your shopping by sector where there are free seats.The house where he lives is shared by his extended family it only occupies a single room that is divided by curtains, a division for bedrooms, and one area in kitchen, it is in this area that is actually reduced and that is where prepared fillings, chicken and sausage with potatoes, but frying is done in your shopping fast food. Approximately in the month has an income of 80 to 130 Euros and potential clientele are college students Kennedy.With the intervention of the project it is expected that the beneficiary can differentiate and manage their accounts differentially family economy and the production unit in order to establish a proper management of the capital of the UP. In addition to learning the rules of hygiene and food safety to be applied in the preparation of their food for sale, to be able to use sales techniques to cope with competition and generate customer preference in the sector is expected to improve conditions in the production process, marketing and strengthening of the production unit giving the minimum conditions in the sale of its products to improve the presentation of his stall and presentation of herself trying to meet hygiene standards set.