Sixteen years of experience working in the area of child labour has led MAYA to understand that poverty is systemic, rather than the fault of individuals who cannot operate successfully. What is required to effectively alleviate poverty and eradicate child labour is not a series of 'welfare' measures, however altruistic, but a multi-faceted approach based on a systemic and holistic understanding of our socio-economic context. Approaches which propagate access to government aid, financial services or training institutions as effective means of empowerment do not really go to the root of the problem of poverty, since they do not address the social, economic and political exclusion repeatedly experienced by the poor. Poverty here is defined as lack of access to income security, finance, learning, and health care and other social services. Such forms of 'un-freedom', as Amartya Sen has pointed out, deprive these groups and communities of a sense of agency and, in effect, of their capability to live and act as independent, empowered human beings.
MAYA ORGANIC attempts to address the systemic nature of poverty and the exclusion that accompanies it by combining an understanding of macro political, social and economic structures with micro-interventions. In practice, this has meant facilitating workers' collectives in which workers own, operate, and market their skills and products. Within these collectives, the workers develop capabilities to acquire a more complex understanding of their situation not as individuals, but as a group as they learn to relate with markets and their community. Concomitant with developing the collectives, MAYA ORGANIC has implemented support structures in the form of the MAYA ORGANIC Sector Development Units and MAYA ORGANIC Support Services (MOSS). These bodies promote and market products and services, expose the groups to new designs and market development, and support collectives as they move towards becoming viable enterprises. Learning and reflection are fundamental to the operation of these collectives. These processes are institutionalised so that they occur continuously: in production, in training, and in every aspect of collective activities. The objective is to foster skills and capabilities that empower the members of each collective in their professional lives and help them make use of newly gained capabilities in coping with their own realities. MAYA ORGANIC believes that the creation of an alternative environment at work– where learning is institutionalised and questioning paramount, and where planning and saving are cornerstones in tackling the many insecurities that pervade workers’ lives– can serve as a potential solution to the systemic problems of poverty for informal sector workers. The learning process enables individuals and groups to assess themselves for areas for further growth and also fosters awareness of available options. Thus, the working poor can become self-directed agents capable of working towards their improvement and social and economical transformation.
