Education is vital part of our organising and campaigning. Migrant Domestic workers are mostly women and to many English is not their first language and have never use this in their own country. One best way to empower them is to provide quality education that provide support to their practical needs and through this, it helps them increase their skills and knowledge to have the power to stand-up, speak-out and campaign to fight for our rights as workers and human beings.
Domestic work is hard but challenging job, we often face problems at work such as long hours of work with unpaid wages or salary that is not according to National Minimum Wage. Many has suffered mistreatment, violence, sexual abuse and other forms of exploitation and slavery. We have to be strong to be able to stand and defend ourselves and our rights. We face common problems so it is important for us to unite as individual worker we can be weak but as collective we are stronger. To many, domestic work is soft-skilled that anyone could do but for us it is a decent work we work very hard to support an provide for our families. We campaign for our recognition as proper workers because we are workers like any other workers who are the prime contributor to global economy.
In London United Kingdom,
Justice for Domestic Workers (J4DW) has formed Education and Campaign group that aim to improve the quality of life and social justice of migrant Domestic Workers. We encourage our members to be members of
Unite the Union as we are part of the biggest union in Britain.This is not just important to work in partnership with Unite of our campaigns but we have gained supports, free advice and free access to attending the ESOL, IT classes and other Trade Union courses. Education project of J4DW is part of the Long Life Learning Project with Unite called the
United Migrant Workers Education Project (UMWEP) that implemented an
Alternative Education Model (AEM) The classes and the courses are open on every Sunday for J4DW group which is our only day off, and Saturday for other Workers group. Through this classes we could learn speaking, writing, reading and listening, for both beginner and advance learners, we can easily facilitate communication with our employers, friends and integrate to wider community and to the society. We also provide trainings about Employment rights. Participating in public meetings, lobbying and demonstration both national and international allow us to apply our learning skills and knowledge to gain more confidence and deliver so we also educate the public on what actually happening behind closed doors to domestic workers.This has been very effective way so domestic workers gained confidence and courage to speak in Public and meetings.
In addition to learning ESOL and IT we also learning how to express our soul through art, because many of us have hidden talent in art such as painting, drawing and designing. We can express our experience in many ways through our education and campaign. We also expressed our opposition to any changes that will affect us though our own hand made placards and banners.
In April 6, 2012 The UK government has removed the visa of Overseas Domestic Workers (ODW) , which means there will be no rights for ODW as workers who come to the UK after April 2012, and the number of violence against Migrant Domestic Workers will increase and the more domestic workers will be vulnerable because they cannot change employer even they escape, they will be automatically undocumented and face detention and deportation. J4DW campaigns to restore Overseas Domestic Worker Visa, it has proven best prevention of human trafficking and it saves those lives who have suffered most. Please suport our campign writing letters to the MPs to restore ODW visa and call to the UK government to ratify ILO convention 189, Domestic Workers Convention and you can also sign and help us distribute widelyour petition with USI Live...
e-petition for the ratification of ILO convention 189 Decent work for Domestic Workers and recognize the significant contribution of Domestic Workers in the global Economy. We are caring workers to the Families of the UK that build the society.
The Importance of Education and Campaign for Domestic Workers
To learn more about the current changes in Overseas Domestic Worker Visa please click the link below, It is a video project of two students about Invisible slavery: Domestic Workers in the UK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5x7wtlwC0Y&feature=g-upl
The video below is what we've learned so far in our classes, we produce our own video when we need a presentation for our events; BABAE (women) from J4DW 3rd Anniversary 18th March 2012.
