SEWA BHARAT Presents

"Hands of Hope" (Exhibition of Photographs, highlight the various facets which constitute this central idea)

By SANJAY KUMAR

The Exhibition will open on
14th May 2008 and will continue till 19th May 2008
From 10:00 am to 8:00 pm
At Open Palm Court, India Habitat Centre,
Lodhi Road, New Delhi.

**The exhibition will also held at The House of Commons, London from 2 - 6 June 2008 hosted by House of Commons

About The Exhibition –

[1]Munger Agarbatti GroupThe theme of the exhibition is "Hands of Hope," and all photographs and information presented will highlight the various facets which constitute this central idea. The pictures will illustrate the many different forms of labor and income-generating activities in which SEWA members are involved, including individual and collective forms of struggle against corruption, diminishing natural resources and economic opportunities. Women will be shown engaged in their daily income generating activities, such as bidi rolling, embroidery and participation in micro-credit collectives, and will also be shown caring for their families. One section in particular will delve into SEWA members' experiences as working homemakers, illustrating women in the midst of balancing the double burden of their livelihood and household activities.

[2]Salt BedThe photographs are intended to document SEWA members' stories of obstacles and successes experienced in their struggles to establish and maintain self-sufficiency, with a special focus towards particular moments of joy and the hopes and dreams which members have for future generations and communities. Each photograph will be accompanied by a brief notation, highlighting the activities presented and the state from which the subject hails. For example, in SEWA Murshidabad, where approximately 95 percent of SEWA members earn income from bidi rolling, the photographs will show the women actively engaged in various stages of the bidi making process. In Delhi, where SEWA members represent a multitude of trades, women will be shown engaged in aari work (embroidery), as pheriwalas (old clothes traders) and vegetable vendors working in the markets. Similarly, the lives of embroidery workers, salt workers, construction workers, and tobacco workers from Gujarat; forest workers, street vendors, and bidi workers from Madhya Pradesh; service providers, such as nursing assistants and canteen workers from Kerala; and silk weavers and agarbatti (incense stick) rollers from Bihar will all be captured through photography and exhibited. Short excerpts from the women's life stories, gathered through personal interviews, may also be included to further contextualize the images.

The intention is to highlight the various trades in which women engage in order to support their families, especially those trades associated with specific geographic regions, and to honor these demonstrations of women's empowerment. Through this exhibition, the audience (members and non-members of SEWA) will have been presented a real-life illustration of the lives of SEWA members from around the country, reinforcing SEWA's philosophy of solidarity and collective struggle for self-sufficiency. SEWA, being the largest Trade Union of women workers in the informal sector with more than one million members, will represent the story of thousands of women workers throughout the country.

About Artist -

"Hands of Hope" is a project conceived and photographed by Sanjay Kumar, Coordinator of SEWA Bharat on behalf of the organization. Sanjay has been involved with the SEWA movement for nearly nine years, and is currently completing his doctoral theses on "Micro Finance Interventions among Women Workers: A Comparative Study of SEWA in India and BRAC in Bangladesh" from Jawaharlal Nehru University. He started his career with SEWA by organizing women vendors in Delhi and forming SHGs. He has been involved with all type of activities both at the grassroots and policy level. Taking advantage of his vast experience with the informal sector workers and his passion for photography, he decided to share the lives of poor women workers with the outer world through the exhibition and proposed book.