HomeNet Southeast Asia (HomeNet SEA) was founded to empower homebased workers in the subregion. Since its formalization as a network in 1997, the various country HomeNets have been engaged in relentless advocacy work to make homebased and other workers in the informal economy visible on the policy map.
Homebased workers in Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand (and later joined by Laos and Cambodia), majority of them women, were the first to form their networks in the subregion. They later converged in HomeNet SEA for greater visibility in national as well as regional policy advocacy towards social protection, occupational safety and health, gender-responsive participatory governance, fair trade and solidarity economy and improved legislation for more responsive policies and programs. These initiatives are meant to extend the labor rights and standards, to which formal workers are entitled, to informal workers (most employed women are in the informal economy), thereby bridging the formal/informal as well as the gender divide.
Homenet Southeast Asia approved membership of two organizations into its network—CraftLink of Viet Nam and eHomemakers of Malaysia during the SRC meeting in Jogjakarta on October 27, 2010. They are the sixth and seventh members of HNSEA who are actively involved in the same advocacy of promoting gender equality and social protection to homebased workers especially women.
Representatives of Homenet Southeast Asia(HNSEA) and Homenet South Asia(HNSA) met in Nagarkot Hotel, Kathmandu, Nepal on July 26 to 30, 2011 to reflect on the experiences in relation to the Inclusive Cities Project and to plan for the remaining period of project implementation.
With 42 participants comprised of country focal persons, programme managers, and homebased workers from seven countries of Southeast Asia(Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand) and South Asia(India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh), a series of presentations and workshop activities made the participants fully understand the basic situation of homebased workers in each country, their livelihoods and working conditions.
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HNSEA delegates attended a three-day Strategic Organizing Workshop conducted by SEWA Academy in Ahmedabad on February 1-3, 2011. About 20 participants from Homenet Southeast Asia, Homenet Thailand, Homenet Laos, and Homenet Cambodia were enlightened on how SEWA emerged from a movement to a big membership organization whose objective is to empower poor women working in the informal economy so they can achieve secure employment and self-reliance.
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Homenet Southeast Asia conducted a two-day visioning exercise on 23-24 April 2011 at Sena Hotel in Bangkok.
The workshop involved all participants from all the country Homenets from Cambodia, Laos, Philippines, Indonesia, Philippine, and the focal point for homebased workers in Malaysia (eHomemakers) in a round-table discussion on current perspectives, experiences, and visions for the future.
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