CURRENT NEWS - February 2009

Traditional Washermen turn modern

Washermen community is one of the lowest in the Indian caste hierarchy. They are derogatorily called Dhobies or Vannars here. Their problems were and still are plenty. Being a minuscule minority, they live in utter insecurity and at the mercy of the majority in the villages. Apart from washing soiled linen of hundreds of families of the village, they are forced to do many other chores for individual families and to the village in common. Worse, for all these works, they are paid not in cash but in kind, that is a little left over food now and then and a few measures of grains annually.

In 1988, we unionized them and educated them on their rights. As a result, today 75% of them have given up their traditional works and those who still do it have begun to demand their wages in cash.
With assistance and guidance from SAM, many of them have taken up alternative and more respectable jobs. All their children now go to school.

Co-operative Power Laundry

In order to make the Washermen Union sustainable and bring dignity to their entire community, recently we assisted them to have a power laundry. Power laundry is an electro- mechanic unit with four sections. The first is a Washing Unit which rinses soiled clothes in clean water and washes them thoroughly. Then, there is Hydro Extractor which squeezes water out of the clothes. Thirdly, the clothes are placed in a Dryer, which dries the clothes bone dry. The fourth section is where these clothes are ironed manually. Of course, there is an administrative section too, to canvass the services, to take orders, to deliver the clothes and to keep accounts. About 1000 clothes can be washed and delivered everyday. Orders from the local industries are slowly coming in.

The Unit now employs ten persons and more will be employed soon when the orders increase. Soon, we expect a monthly income of Rs 30,000. to the Washermen Union after all the administrative expenses.

The Unit was inaugurated on 16 February 2009 at Madurantakam town. Malarvizhi Kumar, Chairman of the Madurantakam Town Panchayat presided over the inaugural function and promised help for the unit. This indeed is a milestione for the washermen community in this region, because it brings modernity to their traditional job, brings dignity to them, brings steady income to their Union which can be very productively used and make their union sustainable and self dependent.