Introduction

In 2016, the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) launched a Train the Trainers (ToT) regional workshop and brought 14 domestic worker leaders from 6 countries to Jakarta, Indonesia for a 4-day intensive training on strategic planning. The rationale for such training is a reflection of the ongoing commitment that IDWF holds in building its affiliates’ organizational and leadership capacity from the ground up. 

As a follow up to the ToT workshops, each trainee was expected to develop her individual work-plan and put what she has learned in terms of planning principles and objectives into practice in her local community for a period of 3 months immediately after the training.  Each participating country as an affiliated union of IDWF was in turn, to commit staff to serve as mentor(s) and provide support for the trainees throughout the duration of the practicum project. 

One of the participating affiliates of this project is the National Domestic Workers Federation (NDWF), a federation of 15 domestic workers unions across 15 states in India.   For the ToT workshop in August 2016, NDWF was represented by two local domestic worker leaders -Renu Linda from Ranchi, Jharkhand and Anjana Sagar from Rourkela, Odisha.  Their Hindi interpreter, Fr. Chetan Chandran, who is also the National Coordinator of NDWF, accompanied them.  Chetan subsequently served as the mentor for the practicum project. This evaluation report focuses on the project implementation in India, specifically, the organizing efforts carried by Renu and Anjana in their respective community.