Migration Support Centres
Our Approach
We embarked on the journey of providing holistic support to migrants and their families in the year 2013 with the launch of Agrasar Bachpan – wherein we teach their children who do not go to schools, facilitate their admissions in formal schools and then work towards enhancing the quality of education in these schools where most of the children belong to migrant communities. The program evolved further over the last nine years as diverse needs of migrant workers and their families started taking priority in our journey towards a caring and compassionate society for all. Today, through our Migration Support Centres, we focus on enabling Gainful and Progressive Employment, Basic Entitlements related to Identity, Education, Health and Financial Inclusion and humane, thriving working conditions.
A Practical Guide to Acts and Rules applicable to “Migrant Workers” in India
For Development Practitioners
| Published in July, 2020 |
This document is a compiled and abridged version of the major labour laws that exist in the country along with the recent amendments. Each law is preceded by a scenario which will allow the reader to connect further with the everyday issues faced by workers. For better understanding, readers should try to apply the major sections of the law to the scenario and develop their own understanding. The document is designed for perusal of development practitioners for whom understanding needs to be in a practical manner to be further disseminated through the community.However, while consulting the document, one needs to be aware that these labour laws have been formulated for a different era and have mostly remained unchanged over decades. There is a need to make these archaic laws friendly for both the employer and the employee so that the whole system benefits. This document is the first step towards making the existing laws understandable and easy for our development practitioners so that they have a baseline to judge the laws, use them as much as possible and further move towards advocacy.
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What we do
Migration Support Centres | DDU-GKY
Social Assimilation, Identity Documentation, Financial and Legal Literacy, Placements, Post Placement Support, Linkages with ESI, PF and other government schemes for the people who have migrated from Odisha through ORMAS (under DDU GKY skilling program) and working in Delhi, Bahadurgarh, Gurugram and Hyderabad.
Migration Support Centres Gurgaon
Social Assimilation, Identity Documentation, Financial and Legal Literacy, Placements, Post Placement Support, Linkages with ESI, PF and other government schemes for people who have migrated from rural parts of various states in India and working in Gurgaon, Rewari and Bhiwadi regions.
Legal Aid Cell
Ensuring legal awareness among workers through capacity building workshops and provision of legal aid to them for engaging with complex legal cases with contractors or principal employers. This facility is run in collaboration with Aajeevika Bureau and seek support from Aajeevika Helpine on need basis.
Agrasar Saathis
Socially concerned and proactive Youths among the primary stakeholders are identified, trained and collectivised as "Agrasar Saathis" who inturn support their fellow community members on all the aspects dealt by Agrasar.
Community Radio
'Career Express' covers a wide range of topics including Career Counselling, Interview Tips, Time Management, Stress Management, Job Search, Rights at Workplace, Awareness about Sexual Harassment, Financial Literacy, ESI, PF and more.
Field Research
Our program design is informed by thorough research studies that we consistently keep doing to better understand various facets of our migration support work.
Our Impact
How We Do It
Community Awareness
Agrasar has an innovative range of outreach activities to reach every nook and cranny of the community. Initiatives such as personalized door-to-door visits, group meetings, street plays, canopies, and focused community camps are meticulously planned to spread awareness amongst youth who are constrained in finding gainful employment opportunities or struggling with any other challenges to avail basic rights and services. Agrasar runs a Radio Programme “Career Express” in collaboration with Community Radio, Gurgaon Ki Awaaz 107.8 FM to reach youth who cannot access regular brick and mortar training facilities. Weekly Radio Shows, Newscasting Sessions and Workshops provide timely information regarding Identity Cards, soft skills, interview preparation, spoken English, Financial Literacy, Social Security, Workers Rights and Job Opportunities.
Baseline Assessment
Baseline is conducted before the beginning of any project. This serves the dual purpose of helping us understand contextual needs and hence adapt the program and also serves as a reference for Impact Assessment.
Actor Mapping and Partnerships
Rural to Urban migration leads to the creation of a contextualised, dynamic and complex system. Our work begins with understanding the various actors, their roles and relationships amongst themselves. Relevant institutions are identified for partnerships.
Facilitating access to rights
While the capacities of stakeholders is continuously enhanced, one of the major endeavours of the program is to facilitate access to rights and services. Focus is always on the primary stakeholders taking up the responsibility for sustaining the efforts.
Capacity Enhancement
Instead of questioning the intent, and therefore getting into a dysfunctional loop, we focus on enhancing the capacities of various stakeholders – the government, industry, contractors, the “migrants” and their families to achieve program goals.
Research and Knowledge Building
Collation and integration of secondary research and complementing/strengthening emerging knowledge with localised research forms an essential part of our work. This also helps in adding to the body of knowledge in the field of migration.
Our Impact Philosophy
Even though we understand that designing scalable interventions is important, we do not believe in targeting numbers. Whenever being asked the question - "How is it going?", our team members would normally talk about students and people - successes achieved or challenges being faced in particular cases. We also try to be fair and objective in communicating about 'impact' to all stakeholders. e.g. you would often hear us mentioning that - "Around 20% of the youth who come to our Employability Centres would have gone in similar jobs had they not joined us. Therefore, we need to find even better avenues of placement." We would also talk about children who we were not able to mainstream. We share our successes as well as challenges so as to attract people and organizations in our journey who mean to make a "real impact".
Tidings from the field
Regular Health Camps are being organised at our Migration Support Centre in Bhiwadi, which is run in collaboration with Odisha Government (ORMAS) under DDU-GKY scheme of Ministry of Rural Development. The camps mainly focuses on preventive healthcare, identifying nutritional deficiency and advising people on practices they can follow in their context.
Monthly Meeting of community corps in Gurugram. "Community Corps" are central to our work on migration support. These are general or theme based solidarity groups of people belonging to migrant communities and are willing to support their fellows by regularly putting in time and efforts.
Last December, 55 students visited Pizza Hut at Ansal Plaza. The students got a glimpse of how the kitchen and store are managed. Through such exposure visits, the youngsters learn and get to explore job opportunity in various sector.
Our Participants
Sangeeta
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Binod
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Savita
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"Berozgaari" - A Research Report on status of unemployment among migrant workers in Gurugram
During Covid (un)Lockdown month of June 2020
| Published in July, 2020 |
This report brings in insights from a rapid survey of 108 migrant workers to understand their employment status as at mid-Jun20. This Survey shows that almost half of these workers are unemployed, despite the majority of this sample being skilled workers. Even those who have found employment have a large proportion whose incomes are much lower than their already meagre pre-COVID19 salaries. Many of them do not want to continue in the same jobs. Of the unemployed in Gurugram, majority are ready to do a lesser paying/lower skilled jobs but are uncertain of job prospects and most have borrowed money from landlords and friends/family to survive. Those who have gone back to villages are still mostly unemployed. In fact, money, not Corona virus, is the main concern for both the employed and the unemployed. If this is the state of this largely skilled sample of workers, one can only imagine the even worse status of the less skilled workers/daily wagers.There is a need for a more co-ordinated employment approach by the government and industry to improve this situation and a desperate need for cash-transfers to the unemployed until they are back in gainful employment. Employers also need to do better to retain their workers and for better productivity.
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"Unworthy?" - A Research Report on salaries of migrant workers in Gurugram
During the covid lockdown period in 2020
| Published in May, 2020 |
In May 2020, Agrasar, in partnership with Safe in India, conducted a rapid survey of migrant workers for their April 2020 wages and found that despite the government announcement regarding employers paying their employees in full for the months of March and April, 75% of the migrant workers were yet to receive their salary. 77% these workers remained in their pre Covid-19 place of residence hoping to get a call soon but only half of them received a call from their previous employer. In May 2020, the government withdrew this mandate leaving the migrant workers to fend for themselves. SII and Agrasar have once again partnered to conduct a rapid survey of 111 migrant workers to understand their employment status post the lockdown.
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"What can safeguard workers?" - A Research Report on workers' accidents in manufacturing Industry
Case Studies and Stakeholders' Response
| Published in September, 2015 |
The industry has several manufacturing clusters in India, of which the Delhi-Gurgaon-Faridabad region is one among the largest four. This region is home to many Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), and Sub Contractor manufacturers ranging from tier-1 to tier-3 who employ over 80,000 workers across a very large number of factories in the region. This Study focuses only on the Gurgaon-Manesar belt within this larger region. Despite, and to some extent due to, its growth and success, more than a thousand workers meet with serious accidents just in the Gurgaon–Manesar belt every year. Most of these accidents lead to permanent disabilities, followed by either a loss of or significant deterioration in the employment of such injured workers. Unsurprisingly, while laws regarding work place safety, post-accident care and compensation do exist, there is an absence of strong and effective institutional mechanisms to support their implementation. This had led to unnecessarily hazardous working conditions, a low level of safety consciousness and training and inadequate post-accident treatment, care, compensation and rehabilitation. Injured workers are therefore often left with long term psychological and physical damage, with it consequent financial implications.
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Sangeeta
Sangeeta moved to Gurugram from Bihar 9 years ago. In order to improve the financial conditions at home, she started searching for a job.
However this was more difficult than she thought and she faced many rejections since she had no Identity cards in her name. As result, getting her children admitted to the government school was also an issue – they require parents ID cards for admission purposes.
Society Maker (a skill development program for women facilitated by Agrasar), during a survey in the community came across her.
The Pravasi team supported Sangeeta in getting her new Aadhar Card. With the help of which she immediately got her children admitted to a government school. Afterwards, she joined Society Maker and started her formal classes to learn sewing and stitching.
Upon joining the school, two of her sons qualified the scholarship test and were awarded with Government Scholarships covering their cost of education.
Over the past year, Sangeeta has worked with Society Maker consistently. She is now a skilled woman who is working and earning through her tailoring skills and supporting her family.
Binod
Binod Paswan, who hails from Bihar moved to Gurugram 12 years ago in the hope of better financial opportunities. He started working as a housekeeper in a private company and his wife became a domestic worker to help supplement his earnings. However, due to the Covid-19 lockdown, they both lost their jobs. There was a severe financial crunch and Binod ended up sending his wife and children back to their village.
Once the lockdown began to ease, Binod called his family back to Sikanderpur. Though he got his job back, his wife was still unemployed. Binod was somehow managing all the expenses and feeding his family. During this time through his neighbourhood, he found out about Agrasar working on ONORC and approached the team. His ration card was missing but with the help of his Aadhar Card the team was able to find out the status of his Ration Card. Since his RC status was active, the team was able to assist Binod in procuring ration from the Fair Price Shop in Kapashera, New Delhi. Under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGK Scheme), Binod was able to procure 50 Kgs of ration for free.
Binod says that procuring free and double ration has been a great help and he is able to save a lot of money because of it. “I am able to invest more in my children with what I save through the ration procurement,” he added. His daughters resumed their studies at the government school along with taking private tuitions. Furthermore, Binod is now regularly depositing money into the student accounts of his daughters. He believes that in case of any unforeseen event or crisis in the future, his daughters education shall not suffer.
Savita
Savita is working as a caretaker. Her house in Odisha was damaged in August 2019 due to floods in the region. She took a sum of Rs. 50,000 from a money lender to meet the damage cost. The money lender gave money on compound interest without fully informing her about the concept of installment with compounded interest. After some time, the Money Lender started pressuring her to return the money with hefty compounded interest. Meanwhile, her husband became ill and had to return to his home town for treatment which added the financial burden. The team had a discussion with the money lender and learnt that he genuinely needs money urgently as there is a wedding in the family. The team helped her get Rs. 30,000 from the current Employer as advanced salary. Savita was able to repay her loan and saved herself from falling under a debt-trap.