The IDWF has included in its 5 years strategic plan (2016 – 2020) the goal to train 950 domestic workers leaders. In 2016 with support of the ILO-Promote, SASK in Finland and ACVCSC Service Union in Belgium, it launched its Leadership Formation Program. It consists 3 activities: to produce education & training manuals on planning and political education, conduct training of trainers’ workshops and lastly implement Practicum in the countries.
By June last year, a draft of the training manual on “Planning for Empowerment and Change” which basically was a tool for our affiliates to plan *SMART was in place. Then the next step was the Training of Trainers (TOT) regional training workshops in Asia (Jakarta, early August) and Africa (Uganda, early October) to both “test” the draft manual and train a total number of 30 domestic worker leaders among our affiliates. The final step – the Practicum was piloted among some of the affiliates in Asia enabling 7 participants at the TOT regional workshops to strengthen the knowledge and skill they have acquired at the workshop through “learning by doing” after they went back to their countries. The 6 domestic workers leaders participated at the first-ever Practicum were Zarni Myint and Marlee Soblek of the Thai Domestic Workers Network, Thailand, Sothy Yim of the Alliance of Cambodia Domestic Workers, Cambodia, Maia Montenegro of UNITED Domestic Workers Union, Philippines and Renu Linda and Anjana Sagar National Domestic Workers Federation, India. The Practicum ran from October to December during which they made their own plans, implemented them and finished with an evaluation. Throughout the period, they were supported by the IDWF and locally-based mentors commissioned by the IDWF.
IDWF and locally-based mentors commissioned by the IDWF. From the reports of the domestic workers participants, the Practicum has been proved worthwhile in two ways. First the domestic workers were able to put learning into practice. Secondly through the activities, the organizations were strengthened with increased membership and more domestic workers leaders. In this exercise, we thank all the mentors who play crucial roles throughout. Here are some of their reports and others prepared together with the participants for sharing of knowledge.
