EDPs allow researchers, practitioners and officials to experience firsthand the challenges that workers in informal employment face. The EDPs focused on law aim to foster an understanding of how laws and regulatory frameworks shape and constrain informal workers’ livelihoods, and how the law might be used to protect these livelihoods. After the exposure, guests come together to reflect and WIEGO facilitates a dialogue on the experiences and the legal framework.
A powerful catalyst for change, Exposure Dialogue Programmes (EDPs) build bridges and forge new relationships and alliances between workers, lawyers and officials.
Dakar, Senegal, 2019
In April, 2019, lawyers who work with informal workers or who might have an interest in their situation, as well as municipal officials whose work affects informal workers were hosted by urban families that depend on street vending and waste picking to survive. Legal professionals and public officials lived and worked alongside these families for two nights and a day as part of WIEGO's EDP.
Read an account on the WIEGO Blog: Dakar lawyers rethink informal workers daily lives and rethink policy.
Ahmedabad, India, 2013
Judges, lawyers, organizers, and academics from around the world spent a week living and working alongside street vendors and waste pickers in Ahmedabad, India in January 2013. It was the first in WIEGO's Law Exposure Dialogue Programme.
Read more about the 2013 Law EDP in this final report.
Personal Reflections and Technical Notes from Participants
- Marty Chen, WIEGO's International Coordinator, was a guest of Devi-Ben, a street vendor and member of the Self-Employed Women's Association
- Marlese von Broembsen, a labour lawyer and law lecturer from South Africa, was a guest of Lila-ben, a street vendor and member of the Self-Employed Women's Association
- Chris Bonner, WIEGO's Director for Organization & Representation, was a guest of Kamala-ben, a waste picker and member of the Self-Employed Women's Association.
- Read a blog by Sonia Dias.
- Read a technical note on access to law written by Harvard Professor Jacqueline Bhabha following the EDP.