We believe that the biggest change or impact to the participants was their realization that they matter, which we strongly believe is the very first step towards empowerment. To elaborate, the housekeeping staff, and particularly, the women housekeeping staff (because women’s labour is especially often invisible both in domestic and professional settings) in large organizations like UPES often constitute what is known in the literature as the ‘invisible labour’ – hidden from the view of the management and higher officials. In fact, while UPES had organized skill development workshops for its security staff, Project Swavlamban was the first of its kind training-intervention for the women housekeeping staff of UPES, hailing from the impoverished village of Bidholi.
We believe that this shroud of invisibility is the first and the biggest impediment in the journey of empowering such a doubly-marginalized workforce, which is why we kept the tagline in the logo for our training intervention as “Swavlamban – I AM”, to emphasize the presence and the contribution of the women housekeeping staff as a crucial and integral part of the university-wide workforce. Moreover, towards the objective of making the women housekeeping staff visible within the organization, along with trainers from outside the organization, we also recruited the services of in-house faculty members for the training intervention and we flagged off the initiative with an a-la-carte lunch with all the facilitators and the women housekeeping staff at the swanky university guesthouse, where our housekeeping didis had previously only cleaned and mopped.
After emphasizing “I AM” (that is, the importance of our existence), we believe the crucial next step towards empowerment is emphasizing “I CAN” (that is, confidence or believing in one’s capabilities). To help grow their confidence, the didis were trained to use ATMs and UPI payment gateways; they were taught to use Google search engine and Google Translate, along with Google’s free ‘text-to-speech’ (TTS) functionality to find and decipher information in English; they were taught to greet and have basic conversations in English, but most importantly, they were shown how to be entrepreneurial and ‘sell’ their skill and knowledge of stitching, crocheting, embroidering, cooking, ghee-making, etc., as a side-hustle.
Finally, the last step towards empowerment is the inculcation of optimism and a personal commitment for striving for a better tomorrow or “ek behtar kal” (which also happens to be the motto of the university) – succinctly expressed by the phrase, “I WILL,” which was the last thematic module of our three-module training intervention, titled Project Swavlamban, for the social and financial empowerment of the women housekeeping staff at the Bidholi campus of UPES. And, therefore, towards that goal, the didis were made aware of the need for saving for their and their children’s future and of the various Governmental schemes that they can avail of. Additionally, a savings bank account (for those who did not have one as the primary account holder) and either an FD account or a PPF account was opened in the name of each of the 30-odd didis, who participated in Project Swavlamban. The didis were also trained to take care of their health with proper diet, meditation, and exercise.
In summary, therefore, the most important changes or impact to the women housekeeping staff from Bidholi village at UPES, who participated in our training intervention – Project Swavlamban, can be summed up in three consequent phrasal phases: “I AM”, “I CAN”, and, “I WILL”.