Background

The Tsunami caused extensive damage in the coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry as well as n Andaman and Nicobar Islands. As per initial estimates of a joint WB/ADB/UN assessment mission, 645,000 families in the four States and approximately 1.2 million workers, mainly in the informal economy were affected. Meetings with workers' representatives on rehabilitation initiatives brought out a number of main potential areas for collaborative activities in the affected areas:

• Facilitating initiatives for livelihoods for educated young fisher women and men;
• Training/skills development and providing opportunities for alternative livelihoods to fishers interested in other vocations; and
• Creation of awareness on workers' rights and education on how to take advantage of their entitlements, enrollment in Welfare Board Schemes, etc.

Objectives

To enable poor and excluded groups to recover from the impact of the tsunami and participate in, and fully benefit from, economic activity and to promote workers' rights through education on labour law and International Labour Standards.

Strategy

• Focusing on groups, especially poor fisher folk, women and youth, in selected areas to participate in micro enterprise and discriminated against in the labour market;
• Organize such persons into SHGs and empower them with information, organization, resources and support of the trade union movement;
• Develop skills and enable them to access alternative employment opportunities.
• The intervention will target poor fisher folk, casual labourers, and others belonging to under-privileged sections of the population. In particular the needs of women and youth will be addressed. Interventions will include:
• Sensitization on rights and relevant social issues such as gender, HIV/AIDS, occupational, safety and health, and child labour, marking use of the knowledge, experience and facilities created under earlier projects;
• Revival of defunct SHGs and start new ones which consist of the poor and other under-privileged groups; and
• Training and support for skills and viable income generation activities.
  

The approach has a mix of direct action (in the form of training, awareness raising and other measures to benefit the target group) alongside institutional development (in this case, the development of new and dynamic SHGs).