Home Based Workers
Mama Cash Fund
Mama Cash is the oldest international women's fund in the world, founded by five feminists in the Netherlands in 1983. Feminism still forms the essence of the organization. The founders of Mama Cash believed that women are best able to achieve structural change in their own context, and that small, autonomous women's groups were critical to achieving this change Mama Cash supports approximately 100 groups that are led by women, girls and transgenders. Organizations, networks and women's funds led by these groups are at the forefront in the fight for the rights of those who are usually ignored or rejected by mainstream society. One of the organizations they support is the Home Based Women Workers Federation. The members of HBWWF, over 4500, are women working in informal labour, largely as labourers who are working from their own homes. They are producing for garment and related industries: they produce textile, do embroidery and stitching, make shoes, and create jewellery and specifically glass bangles. They are organized in 31 unions which now form the HBWWF. The areas where HBWWF has been active for a while are Karachi and Hyderabad (both in Sindh province) and Balochistan province; the HBWWF is now also expanding to Punjab province. These areas are in the South of Pakistan.
