HomeNet South Asia Trust

Making AI practical for our network!

On 25 August and 3 September, HomeNet South Asia, together with 10x Impact Labs, held two AI training sessions for leaders from our affiliate home-based worker organizations.

From AI fundamentals and prompting to fundraising research and donor mapping, participants explored practical ways AI can support their work.
And we’re listening to what they had to say!

Participants valued the interactive activities and practical exercises, while asking for more hands-on practice, work-specific examples, and more accessible language in future sessions.

Good news: three more sessions are coming! We’ll keep learning, experimenting, and building practical AI skills together.

Thank you to 10x Impact Labs and all our participating leaders!

#HomeNetSouthAsia #AIForGood #HomeBasedWorkers #ResponsibleAI #CapacityBuilding #10xImpactLabs #AITraining

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1 day ago | [YT] | 1

HomeNet South Asia Trust

Who makes a garment before it reaches the shop floor?

For many garments, part of the work happens in homes through sewing, embroidery, embellishment, finishing, and other piece-rate tasks carried out by home-based workers.

Research by HomeNet South Asia and HomeNet Pakistan looked at the experiences of 110 women homeworkers in Karachi and found some stark gaps in working conditions.

• 70.9% did not use safety equipment such as gloves or masks.
• 82.7% reported eye strain or headaches related to their work.
• 63.6% reported back pain.
• 56.4% reported neck or shoulder pain.
• Before COVID-19, 72.7% said the products they worked on were sold in international markets.
• Yet during COVID-19, around 90% of those asked said they did not know which brands they were producing for.

The work may happen at home, but it can still be part of a much larger garment supply chain.

Recognising home-based workers means recognising the work that happens outside the factory, and the working conditions that come with it.
These are some of the questions our Regional Coordinator, Dr. Janvi G. Kanakia, will be exploring further as a panelist at the Sustainable Global Value Chain Forum in Singapore on September 11, alongside the wider conversation on home-based workers and their place in the supply chain. Stay tuned!

Based on: Homeworkers in Garment Supply Chains: Research from Karachi, Pakistan, HomeNet South Asia & HomeNet Pakistan, 2022.

Full report: hnsatrust.org/resource/homeworkers-garment-supply-…

#HomeBasedWorkers #GarmentSupplyChains #WorkersRights
#SupplyChain #WomenWorkers #HomeNetSouthAsia

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3 days ago | [YT] | 1

HomeNet South Asia Trust

LOOKING BACK: WHEN A SIMPLE RECORD MADE WORK VISIBLE.

For home-based workers, keeping a record of work can help answer some very practical questions: What orders did I receive? What type of work did I do? What was the piece rate? How long did the order take? And how much did I earn?

Under HNSA’s wage card initiative, affiliates developed and distributed wage cards to home-based workers in different regions of Pakistan, Nepal, and India. Each card recorded common information such as order type, work type, and wage rates.

The study found that before the initiative, only around 35% of respondents were keeping track of their orders, with most using a diary. After the introduction of wage cards, approximately 88% reported using them to track their orders. Around 95% said they understood the information being recorded.

The value of the cards also differed across the four clusters:

🇵🇰 HomeNet Pakistan: Workers used the cards to record finished goods, remade pieces, and wage loss from rejected pieces.

🇳🇵 SABAH Nepal: 500 cards were distributed, with 368 workers consistently filling them. Workers reported that recording their time, type of work, and income was helpful.

🇮🇳 SAVE Tirupur: 1,018 workers received cards, and the study found that their use helped workers better understand the average income they earned from home-based work.

🇮🇳 SEWA Bharat Delhi: About 70% of the 100 workers who received cards were using them to understand piece rates, time taken to complete orders, frequency of orders, and income.

The study's finding was clear: when used systematically, wage cards can help workers understand their orders, the time required to complete them, and the income they generate. It also creates useful records for partners and contractors when calculating payments.

Read the full report here: hnsatrust.org/resource/study-wage-analysis-home-ba…

#HomeBasedWorkers #WageCards #WorkersRights #FairWages #HNSA

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1 week ago | [YT] | 1

HomeNet South Asia Trust

Home is where they work. But who's making sure it's safe?

Across South Asia, millions of home-based workers stitch, weave, roll, and assemble from the same four walls where they cook and sleep. There's no safety officer walking through that door, no inspection, no formal workplace at all. There are just the risks: fire, heat stress, poor ventilation, ergonomic injury, and now, increasingly, climate disaster.

As extreme weather events grow more frequent and severe across the region, protecting informal workers and economies isn't optional; it's urgent. Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) is the fundamental right to not get hurt doing your job, and for home-based workers, that right is still catching up to reality.

That's why our affiliate in Bangladesh, LIE (Labour at Informal Economy Society), has been working directly with women home-based worker leaders by training them in fire safety, disaster response, and heatwave protection, and turning that training into action: tree plantations, emergency water systems, community OSH plans, and stronger social protection access. Trainings like these matter because they ensure workers know how to act and respond when disaster hits, not just recover after the fact.

LIE has long been one of our most committed affiliates on the ground, and their work continues to set the standard for what informal worker protection looks like in practice.

Because safety shouldn't depend on where your workplace happens to be.

#HomeNetSouthAsia #HomeBasedWorkers #OccupationalSafetyAndHealth #InformalEconomy #WorkerRights

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HomeNet South Asia Trust

As the situation in Nepal unfolds, HNSA is staying closely connected with our affiliates and the WFDM Network to understand on-the-ground needs and support the ongoing response.

If you would like to support these efforts or explore ways to help, please reach out to us.

#Nepal #NepalFloods #DisasterRelief #HumanitarianResponse #SolidarityWithNepal #HomeNetSouthAsia

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2 weeks ago | [YT] | 0

HomeNet South Asia Trust

In a sunlit corner of her home, a home-based worker sorts and binds dried grass stalks into brooms, stalk by stalk, bundle by bundle. She selects the right length, gathers enough stems, and ties them tightly so each broom can withstand months of daily use.

She does this work from a small 150-square-foot room that is also her home. Between making brooms, she cooks, cleans, and cares for her family. During heat waves, the room can become unbearably hot, while monsoon rains can seep through the roof.

For many women across South Asia, home-based work is not a choice. Care responsibilities, mobility restrictions, limited skills, and a lack of other opportunities leave them with few alternatives. Much of this work is seasonal, informal, and poorly paid, with women often earning as little as ₹7–12 for each broom they make.

Millions of women like her keep their families and communities going through work that remains largely invisible. Recognising their work, ensuring fair wages, and expanding access to social protection can help create a future with greater dignity, security, and opportunity.

#HomeBasedWorkers #HomeNetSouthAsia #InvisibleWork #DecentWork #FairWages

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HomeNet South Asia Trust

Today, on International Domestic Workers Day, we at HomeNet South Asia stand in full solidarity with every domestic worker across South Asia. These are the women who cook, clean, care, and keep households running, often without recognition, rest, and many basic rights.

Domestic work is skilled work. It takes care, patience, and expertise, yet it remains one of the most undervalued and unprotected forms of labour in our region.

To every domestic worker across our region – we see you, stand with you, and will continue fighting alongside you.

#HomeNetSouthAsia #InternationalDomesticWorkersDay #WorkersRights #SouthAsia

2 months ago | [YT] | 0

HomeNet South Asia Trust

Behind every handcrafted Benarasi sari and embroidered kurta is a journey of skill, patience, and tradition.

From designing intricate motifs and dyeing threads to weaving, embroidery, finishing, and quality checks, each piece is carefully crafted by a skilled home-based artisan’s hands before it reaches yours.

Every purchase helps create livelihood opportunities for home-based workers and keeps traditional craftsmanship in practice.

#HandCrafted #Embroidery #HomeNetSouthAsia

3 months ago | [YT] | 2

HomeNet South Asia Trust

Tiruppur is known as the Knitwear Capital of India. When the world buys a cotton t-shirt, there is a good chance it passed through this city.


What that number doesn't show is who, at the very base of that supply chain, is holding things together. The home-based workers.


Our affiliate Social Awareness and Voluntary Education (SAVE) conducted focus group discussions with women HBWs engaged in tailoring, packing, and waste segregation across Tiruppur's residential clusters. Field data show a consistent pattern: input costs have more than doubled, while piece-rate wages have remained unchanged. The burden of a global crisis silently falls on the most unrecognised workers.


When the LPG shortage hit, it didn't just make cooking harder, it dismantled the careful balance these women had built around their days. With cylinders scarce and wait times stretching to a month, they turned to firewood, kerosene, and electric stoves just to keep meals on the table. Women in rented homes couldn't even do that, because landlords wouldn't allow open fires. Some families bought cooked food from outside for weeks. Others borrowed from neighbours, pledged their jewelleries and took loans from informal lenders, taking on debt that didn't exist before any of this started.


The hours lost to managing all of this were hours taken directly from paid work. And yet the wages for that work stayed exactly the same.


This situation has not been resolved. The shortage is ongoing, the debt is ongoing, and the silence from government and authorities is ongoing too.

3 months ago | [YT] | 1

HomeNet South Asia Trust

Home-based workers were officially recognized by the International Labour Organization in 1996 through the Home Work Convention (C177).

They remain an essential part of local and international production systems, and their presence is reflected across everyday products, from mudhas and carpets to garlands and spices.

#HomeBasedWorkers #HomeNetSouthAsia #ILO

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