Women Speak - Workers' Narrative Videos

On March 7, 2019, the WIEGO Delhi Focal City team organized “Women Speak – Workers’ Narratives” hosted by the India Habitat Center. Seven informal workers from Delhi City—one construction worker, three home-based workers, one street vendor and one waste picker—told their own stories, in their own words, to a large, rapt audience.

In these video clips the women speak in Hindi:

In this video, Savita ben, a resident of Savda Ghevda, speaks about the difficulties she and her family faced when they were forced to move there, including the loss of livelihood by moving moved to a largely inaccessible area.

Usha-ben, a street vendor in SEWA’s Ladies Market, talked about the need for social protection for vendors, maybe couched in a welfare board akin to the Construction Workers’ Welfare Board.

Savita-ben made a case for societal support for all informal workers in their time of need. She’s speaking of instances when her daughter is asked to get down from a public bus because she doesn’t have enough money to pay the fare (10 rs.), and how a little support could help her achieve her dream of being educated.

Hirawati Devi, a home-based worker and community organizer with Jagori speaks of the difference organizing played in her life, by making her independent enough to pursue her own skill training. She was asked to find a way to convince her family members to do the skill training and make a case for it, in order to be more self-sufficient. Later in the evening, she attributed this attitude to the confidence she felt that day in speaking in front of everyone.