The domestic work sector suffers from: 

Unrecognized labour, as they work in the informal sector; our very ingrained caste system where they are at the bottom of our social pyramid; Subjective work conditions, as they are unable to negotiate working hours and salary, and the post-lockdown effect, as they were fired from jobs, had salary cuts and were “Covid carriers”.

Solution System 

This is the solution system map which shows the interdependencies of various stakeholders in order for the solution to work. The solution system is co-designed by us and the university being mindful of the benefits to all stakeholders. 

As you know PNP has its reach across Delhi. We work in the rural and urban areas in the state. The funds our NGO receives is from grants, corporate donations and our consultancy services. We have researched the vulnerabilities of domestic workers and their condition during the pandemic. The innovation team at PNP has designed project Aarohan for domestic workers working in housing societies. The curriculum and skill development workshops are developed with the help of professors from the Delhi University.

RWAs like yours will help us execute our program effectively. After designing the program and having enough funds for execution, we will reach out to RWAs to allow us to conduct this program in their housing society premises. After binding a contract with the RWA we will put up banners in the premises for the domestic workers to see and be encouraged to participate. Their participation is voluntary but their employers can motivate them by making them understand the profits of attending the program. 

The training program is designed to have modules to spread knowledge and create awareness amongst the domestic workers. Each module is divided into eight sessions to talk about the details of the broader topic. It is planned to be carried out once a week for two hours. For the first year, we plan to start two batches with 10 domestic workers in each.

We plan to deliver the program which could be the easiest for illiterate workers to understand. Our focus will be to deliver it with more visual data which will include scenario based demonstrations. Skill learning sessions will have activities. Sensitive Topics related to personally faced problems will have activities like sharing circles and talks by experts from the real world.

The session will be divided into introduction of the topic, seminar that is the presentation and information sharing, followed by a short break to absorb the information. After the discussion there will be an interactive part for questions and queries and lastly a one on one session for participants who feel uncomfortable to discuss something during the session.

Brochures will be distributed to all the participants every week during the session. The brochure will include all the learnings of the module in a visual and engaging way. This will help them take the content taught back home and it will help us spread the word in their community. 

This is a sample brochure we have designed for the first session of the health and safety module. The session is regarding COVID-19 general protocols. 

The text in the brochure will be in the local language that is Hindi in New Delhi. The general norms to be followed everyday, while travelling and hygiene afterwards is shown graphically. Details to contact the NGO as well as the nearest government hospitals is mentioned in case of emergency.

Module 1 in detail 

We designed a sample module breakdown of Health and Safety with details of each session, key learnings and incentive per module. The topics covered for sessions would include - COVID 19 protocols, Covid-19 : accessing healthcare facilities, food and nutrition, first aid, menstrual health, mental health etc. For other modules for the first year we would look at financial planning, education and literacy, skill based workshops, legalities and social issues.

Certificate and incentive 

By the end of each session they will be provided with small incentives which are related to their learnings of the session. For example like in the first session they will be given masks and sanitizers. By the end of each module that is after two months they will receive a completion certificate to boost their enthusiasm and feeling of achievement to continue learning.

Some workers who have successfully completed a certain number of modules will be offered an Ambassador title, through which they can attend specific feedback meetings and contribute their point of view and be the spokesperson for the community of domestic workers.

Evaluation of criteria for solution 

This radar graph was devised at the end of our research phase to analyze how we could evaluate our project success. It visualises how much of the criteria for our final solution we will be able to address in the first year and by the fifth year. The rings represent the levels of satisfaction, or how much could we meet these criteria. To start with, we have met the criteria of empowerment, partnerships and comprehensiveness the most, and our future plans for the project aim to make it more sustainable, accessible and inclusive. 

Cost 

For the cost structure we have taken PNP’s official financial report for year 2019-2020 as reference. 

Sources of income for the parent NGO are grants, consultancy and corporate donations from banks, MNCs and independent donors.  From the Aarohan program the parent NGO will receive subscription fees from the participating RWA and partnering NGOs. The expenditure for the program will cover salaries of the employees, material costs, marketing and design and incentives for the program. So, 25% percent of the NGO’s income will be used for Project Aarohan in one housing society for one year. 

During the expansion in the second year, the partnering NGOs will require a minimum funding as listed to run the program. Besides the running costs of the program, their expenditure will include subscription fees to the parent NGO for all the updated module related content and design to conduct the program. 

Timeline 

In foresight, we speculated what the next 9 years could look like for the project. We hope in the second year with the availability of COVID-19 vaccine, the batch sizes could be increased and we can expand to other local housing societies by leveraging partnerships with NGOs. By the 5th year, we hope to expand statewide and start pitching to national level NGOs like Reliance foundation for a wider reach. By 10th year, with the support of the government and Reliance foundation, we hope to be able to reach most major cities in India.

Futures wheel

We used the futures wheel as a method to determine the indirect future consequences of introducing the Aarohan project. On an infrastructural level, the price of housing societies could go up as these housing societies will be able to provide access to better quality  domestic work. However, middle class families could be uncomfortable with increased demands and find it hard to afford the services. On a socio- cultural level, the domestic workers will become more aware of their rights and options in order to navigate livelihood challenges and will feel nudged to stand up for herself and her family more. With respect to power dynamics, the status quo of the employers and RWA could be humbled down as the program will encourage them to be volunteers and donors and they could feel invested in the well being of the workers .  On a political level, once the program has sufficient media coverage, it will could gain  more recognition and more powerful authorities like the government would want to invest in the program as well. 

Empowerment Matrix 

We did an evaluation of our solution by creating an empowerment matrix. ‘Power to’ refers to the individual ability to act, ‘Power with’ refers to collective action, ‘Power over’ refers to control of one over another and ‘Power within’ refers to a sense of self worth, dignity and individual capacity.‘The ideal zone of intervention’ that we determined for our problem space lies away from ‘Power over’ which is where  Project Aarohan lies. It lies slightly in the undesirable zone because we recognize that it still may be prone to undue influence of the status quo.

Limitations 

We used the futures wheel as a method to determine the indirect future consequences of introducing the Aarohan project which you can refer to in our full report. From that we speculated that in the next few years, the limitations we can foresee are funding and partnership challenges while scaling up the program to reach more domestic workers. Then, acceptance of the program by employers and powerful entities as it threatens their existing status quo could be another challenge. Since the program is working with the support of RWA, only the domestic workers employed in the housing society can attend the program and those who were previously fired cannot attend it. The domestic workers might be reluctant to participate as it could eat into their working times at the homes where they are employed or the time they need to go home and check on their kids’ well being. Inferiority complex induced by the caste system will always be an uncomfortable elephant in the room that would need to be considered as well going forward.