In 1991 she broke with her religious order and set up the Women's Initiative Network (win), a voluntary organisation committed to the welfare of women employed in the fisheries sector.
The aquaculture industry attracts huge foreign exchange by way of prawn exports. Yet, the plight of its female workforce falls outside the government's gaze. win addresses the concerns of women working in the prawn peeling factories that dot the coastline of Ernakulam and Alapuzha districts. Women from Kerala's coastal belt are endowed with special expertise to carry out this task.
Yet, they are subject to all the ignominies which afflict a labour force employed in any unorganised sector. They are not allowed to form unions and are denied compensatory allowance for work-related health hazards. To top it all, there are no industry norms to inhibit their employers.
Alice has been trying to create options for these women. Says she: "We want to provide them with other income-generating programmes to reduce their dependence on the fish-processing industry." Her efforts to organise them into a union came to a naught in the face of stiff resistance from the industry as well as the political establishment. Recalls Alice: "Women were prevented from attending our meetings by their husbands who were members of various political unions." She realised that organising the women into a militant group would not help their cause.
Instead, Alice enrolled the 'second sex' workforce into self-help groups and set them on the road to self-employment by tapping alternative occupational possibilities. Explains the rebel nun: "Our aim is to train the women in alternative means of sustenance such as floriculture, ornamental fish-rearing, tailoring, embroidery and so on." Consequently, these women now have increased bargaining power with the management.
The main thrust of the self-help groups is to empower the women. Therefore, Alice and her comrades first addressed the disempowering factors - lack of economic security, organisational backing and opportunities for skills development - which kept the prawn-peeling women dependent on men. They began by making the women financially self-supportive. They pooled in their savings with the self-help groups and took loans to meet their household needs. Peer pressure ensured prompt repayment of the loans. "Our husbands have begun respecting us," observes Malati, a member of Alice's group. "We can raise money for the family in a crisis which they are unable to."
A poor fisherwoman was not worth anything simply because she couldn't open a bank account. Alice's self-help group has made her bankable by giving her access to that system. The nun and her 22-member core group oversee around 150 self-help groups which touch the lives of 3,000 families along the coastal belt of Ernakulam and Alapuzha districts. More and more women are waiting to join up.
Alice's self-help programme has taught the illiterate fisherwoman to value herself. It has taught her to save and has thus improved her bargaining position at the workplace. Most important of all, it has sent a message, loud and clear, to the male mandarins of the fishing industry that the women squatting on the damp floor of the peeling sheds are now aware of emancipation.
Sister Alice or her teammates can be contacted at
Win Centre,
Post Office Eramalloor,
Alapuzha,
Kerala
Phone: 0478-874352.
