Literacy centres set up for women cotton pickers

SCF’s initiative in Matiari district to make rural females ‘read and write’

KARACHI:

The Sindh Community Foundation (SCF) has set up five literacy centres for women cotton-pickers in Matiari district of Sindh in order to improve basic literacy among the rural women. The initiative has been named "Suhaeen" which literary means "light".

These literacy centres have been established in the villages of Meho Machhi, Jamal Dahri, Khanoth, Tarah, and Yahmeen Ahpan, while the SCF says five more such centres are in the pipeline.

"Each centre will enroll about 30 women," SCF head Javed Hussain told The Express Tribune. "There are about 350 women cotton-pickers who really want to learn how to read and write," he added. "We have designed a six-month basic literacy course, which has also been approved by the Sindh government."

Hussain added that the SCF started working for the rights of women cotton-pickers some six years ago and its work was also recently acknowledge by the Gender Just Solution at COP27 climate summit in Egypt. "According to estimates, more than half a million women are employed as cotton-pickers for 4-5 months every year in Sindh alone," he added.

While working for these cotton workers, the SCF found out that majority [about 90 percent] of them were either unlettered or had very basic schooling as they belonged to poor families, Hussain said. "Most of the time they fail to keep count of their daily wages and end up receiving less than their due remunerations," he added. "They can't even sign in record books kept by their employers."

Hussain said that the cotton-pickers enrolled in the literacy centers set up by SCF would complete 240 hours of classes through a comprehensive six-month course. During this course, they would not only learn how to read and write but would also get awareness about their rights and how to negotiate with their employers for fairer wages. "It had been our dream which has finally come true with the help of a UK-based organisation, 'Feed The Minds,'" he added.

Hussain believes that the initiative would leave a positive impact on the lives and working conditions of these cotton picker women and increase their confidence. He demanded that the Sindh Labour Department should also replicate this model in other areas of the province.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2022.