Project name: Sustainability in the Textile and Leather Sector in Bangladesh (STILE)
Project duration: January 2022 – Jun 2024.
Donor Name: The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
Geographic Coverage Name of District & Upazilla: Mohammodpur (Dhaka Uddyan) and Savar (Hemayetpur Tannery Zone)j
Objectives
Enhance the bargaining capacity of workers especially women workers regarding their rights and duties, developing their leadership capacities and ensure legal aid support to the RMG workers.
- To educate and enhance the bargaining capacity of workers, especially women workers for participating in decision making via representation in factory-based committees for improvement of social and environmental conditions in the RMG, textile and leather industries.
- To refer and relationship building with the legal experts/advocates/legal aid serving agencies to receive legal aid support (both labour law and family related)
Direct beneficiaries
The project targeted 6,000 male and female worker as direct beneficiaries from the RMG and Tannery sectors. Among the total direct beneficiaries’ 60 percent (approx. 3,600 RMG workers), and 40 percent (approx. 2,400 Tannery workers). They are the members of general workers and other members from factory-based structure like – Safety Committee, Participation Committee, Trade Union, Anti-Harassment Committee, and others. SRS believe to reach indirectly more than 60,000 RMG and leather-tannery sectors workers through the direct beneficiaries, project personal and the peer leaders.
- 6,000 RMG workers sensitized and leadership capacity enhanced about their legal rights, social and environmental compliance, environmental standard, gender, communication and negotiation and also increased representation of women workers in the factory-based committees (e.g. Participation Committees, Safety Committees and Anti-Harassment Committees) for improvement of social and environmental conditions in the RMG, textile and leather industries.
- Workers in need of legal mediation received adequate advice and help (at least 50 cases per year resolved and are satisfactorily solved).
Project outputs
- Provide trainings to 6,000 workers from the textile, garment and leather-tannery sector through their two Women Cafes. Training topics will be decided in consultation with Particip and the project team and will be in line with the awareness raising, information and education campaigns. Café managers, peer educators and other NGO staff will receive trainings from Particip assigned experts based on train-of-trainer concept.
- Coordinate with multi-level stakeholders to amicably mediate conflict between workers and management i.e. via liaison with factory management, arbitration cells of industry associations, government, buyers, trade unions and / or other stakeholders for realization of legal entitlements of workers and providing legal advice and assistance to affected workers, as required, and mediate conflict between workers and management.
- Facilitate workers to share their issues and concerns, and network to raise their collective voices for improvement of working conditions.
- Update training modules and toolkits, workshop agendas and modules, gender policy, Ludo games questionnaires, and other project information and activities on a regular basis as per updates and /or amendments to existing laws and policies.
- Foster a good working relationship with different stakeholders such as the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA), the Leather goods and Footwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association of Bangladesh (LFMEAB), as well as different NGOs, buyers, trade unions, and organizations working towards improvement of working conditions in the textile-, garment-, and leather sector and to increase the synergies in improving the social and environmental compliance status in the sectors.
Project activities
- Establishment of WCs at community level
- Establishment of Worker Groups (WG) at community level
- Rights-based, environmental and social capital sessions for RMG and leather industry workers
- Establishment of 5 peer leaders’ WGs
- Quarterly meeting with peer leaders’ WGs for advocacy purposes
- Network and referral to health/legal aid service providers
- Provide direct health support
- Observation of relevant International Days
- Training on Income generating activities