00:04So most of us here are migrants.
00:08We have moved for opportunities
and a better life for ourselves
00:16There are three quarters
of a billion workers globally
00:19who migrate within their countries.
00:21Some go to the nearest town
for a short duration,
00:25and some travel thousands of miles
for months, even years,
00:31leaving all they know,
including their families, behind.
00:36These migrants work
at a construction site,
00:39manufacturing units,
00:45they are not migrating
for opportunities, but to survive.
00:50The majority of them are poor,
00:52working for very low wages
and lack safety nets.
01:04Without safety nets, one job loss,
one health emergency,
01:09undermine years of effort
01:11and keep them trapped
in the cycles of poverty.
01:18India is the fastest-growing
economy in the world
01:22and home to 200 million internal migrants.
01:26These migrants directly contribute
at least 10 percent
01:31in our three-trillion GDP,
01:33but they lack safety nets.
01:36What's remarkable is that we have
a huge safety-net system in India
01:41which provides various benefits
01:43like cash transfer, food subsidy,
health care, insurance.
01:48In fact, there are 7,000
benefits available
01:52with billions of dollars allocated
for the poor, including migrants.
01:57And evidence shows that these
benefits help in a huge way.
02:02And globally, safety nets [help]
reduce poverty by 40 percent.
02:07But migrants [can’t] access them
and access is not very easy.
02:13Most do not know about the benefit.
02:17If they do, requirements
are too complex and too many
02:21for the migrants
who are daily-wage earners.
02:24So the money and programs exist,
02:28but the delivery system
is just not working.
02:31And this is what our team and partners
at Migrant Resilience Collaborative
02:40We build resilience and ensure dignity
of the migrant community.
02:46For this, we have adopted
a two-pronged strategy.
02:50Our team, over 1,000 people, themselves
come from the migrant community,
02:55helps millions across 100 districts
02:59to overcome the challenges in the delivery
03:02and access of their benefits.
03:05And at the same time,
03:07we establish a feedback loop
from the community
03:11to the government and industry.
03:14So we can improve the underlying system,
03:18policy design and accountability
to fix the system long-term
03:23for tens of millions more.
03:26In just two and a half years,
03:29what we started as an audacious idea,
03:32is today the planet’s largest
03:34grassroots-led collaborative
for the migrants
03:38and has helped
over three million households
03:42for the social security benefits.
03:45Benefits for the people like Suresh.
03:49We met Suresh when he was looking
for daily job work in Mumbai.
03:55Let's hear from him.
03:57(Video) Suresh Waidande: My wife and I
work very hard to ensure that our children
04:01do not have to do hard labor,
04:03that they get a good education.
04:11My name is Suresh Bhimrao Waidande.
04:14I'm from the Khatav Block
of Satara district.
04:17I got tired of being poor and quit school
to work for daily wages.
04:25I decided that I had
to work hard to survive
04:28and make sure that I could feed my family.
04:36So I came to Mumbai.
04:37When I arrived I took the Koyna Express
from Satara to Mumbai.
04:45It was my first time taking a train.
04:47I saw mountains, valleys,
canyons and tunnels.
04:49The atmosphere was so different.
04:54For my first job, I was paid
something like 30-40 rupees a day
04:57(less than 50 cents USD).
05:02As a daily laborer,
there are many problems.
05:04and some are really difficult to overcome.
05:12If workers take on jobs
without proper identification
05:15or attendance cards
[to track their hours],
05:17they can potentially lose payment.
05:22Sometimes the employer doesn't pay
for your travel like they should,
05:25or they promise you work
and then give it to someone else.
05:28There is a lot of injustice.
05:33Such information is shared by Jan Sahas.
05:36But not everything
about our work is formal,
05:38so they ask us to be careful and aware.
05:43They provide us information
about our rights.
05:45And assure us of support
if we are treated unfairly
05:48or face any injustice.
05:54Whether it's Mumbai
or any other city in India,
05:56the country cannot survive
without workers like us.
06:05The great poet Annabhau Sathe used to say,
06:07this land is not resting on Earth
but on callused hands of workers.
06:17The only way that any town,
village or country can develop
06:20is through the hard labor of workers.
06:34AS: With support of our team,
06:36Suresh has access to food security,
06:39insurance and a hope to continue
education for his children.
06:48And most importantly, most importantly,
06:51knowledge on how to access
his rights and entitlements.
06:56Let me leave you with this.
06:58With climate change,
07:02the migration is set to grow
at an unprecedented scale
07:07We will scale our program
across south and southeast Asia
07:12to share our work with the world.
07:15There are hundreds of millions
of people who work very hard
07:21to build modern society
from the ground up.
07:25The buildings where we live or work in,
07:29the airport, the big hotels,
07:31but yet none of these
[are] accessible for them.
07:35This is the moment where we should
recognize their contribution.
07:41And ensure they will
no longer be invisible or ignored.
07:48We do this work to honor their dignity.
