From the pandemic, an opportunity
- Jossie
- 1 may 2020
- 2 Min. de lectura
Actualizado: 1 may 2020
When I first learned about the summer internship program of the MPA/ID it was like a dream, being able to spend my summer in a faraway place, working on something meaningful in the field. When I got the internship with IMAGO to support the Self-Employed Women’s Association in India, the dream felt more alive than ever. One can imagine my disappointment when few weeks later travel bans started to appear and it was announced that, with good reason, all summer internships would be done remotely. My first thought was that I would not be able to accomplish my so long-awaited foreign experience. The second thought was, actually now even more than before I could do something meaningful with my internship. Now, I would make myself useful to people that actually were fighting day to day to overcome a never expected crisis.
I will be working on three main things. First, an assessment on the overall needs of the Women Social Enterprises that are part to SEWA. Second, identifying the challenges they are facing due to the current crisis and associated lockdown and how to develop virtual training and support them to use this period as an opportunity to improve. Third, research on the global response to support informal sector workers.
Excitement to work on this project has fulfilled my expectations and in certain aspects gone beyond them. This is the time in which I will learn from people in the field, even if through phone calls, in which we will work together to match their needs, in which I will devote myself to think deeply and openly on how to sustain their development.
This, amid all the uncertainty and suffering that this pandemic has generated, will be an opportunity to really ask what we can do and do it.
Nitya ben is a Coordinator for Social Enterpises at SEWA Bharat. She studied Economics and started her career in financial sercives at Pricewaterhouse Cooper, then she moved to Paytm Payments Bank and later she was a fellow at the University of Chicago. Now she manages the MOVE project at SEWA. She is also helping to setup an Enterprise Support System to increase the sustainability of SEWA’s social enterprises.
She told me how she ended up almost by chance working at SEWA. She did not know the organization beforehand, but when she learned about it, the intersection between entrepreneurship, income sustainability and grassroots management really caught her attention.
Among her favorite parts of working at SEWA are the fact of building…
Develop your own identity as a leader
Mittal ben has been part of SEWA for the past 30 years. She was very generous to give me one hour of her time to share some of her learnings and advice. She started by the story of how she ended up in SEWA. She graduated in pharmacy and saw an advertisement that a pharmacist was required, so she decided to apply for the position. Mirai ben was the one who interviewed her and from that moment through the years she has become one of her role models. However, for Mittal ben, having a role model did not necessarily mean copying all her qualities, but rather finding the space for her own growth.…
Women’s empowerment measures
During my previous job, I had been working a lot with the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI). This is a survey-based index specifically designed to measure the empowerment, agency and inclusion of women in the agriculture sector.
The WEAI comprises two sub-indexes, the five domains of empowerment in agriculture (5DE) and the Gender Parity Index (GPI). The domains considered in the 5DE are the following: (i) production refers to decisions on agricultural production, sole or joint decision-making and autonomy in agricultural production; (ii) resources refers to ownership, access and decision-making power over productive; (iii) income refers to sole or joint control over the use of income and expenditures; (iv) leadership refers to leadership in the community,…
Third learning: The time and space.
COVID didn’t allow us to witness SEWA’s work in the ground, which I’m sure would have been quite an experience. Time was a different one according to where we were located in the world, for some it was close to breakfast time and for others it was almost dinner time. Space was the Zoom platform, but this was also a window to everybody’s house and daily experiences, to their world, noises and surroundings. Somehow, zoom allowed us to experience a bit of Gujarat, DC, Asuncion, Piura and Copenhagen.
From the begging, Imago took steps from to connect and bring together the broader team spread around the world. The first meeting was our “onboarding”, where…
Second learning: The way of working.
Imago put the human at the center of the work. This was obvious from the beginning and throughout the weeks.
The first workshop with SEWA was devoted to learning about the women’s backgrounds, their role in SEWA and their hopes for the project. Moreover, a section was especially designed to brainstorm on group norms, which included assuming best intentions, respect and having a learning mindset. This process of sharing knowledge and perspectives was the first step of a co-creation process that would take place in every workshop, where women in different positions inside SEWA would give very specific feedback on what was presented, and IMAGO would adapt for the next meeting. This iterative approach,…