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The Working Women's Forum (WWF) is a women's organisation in southern India. It was founded in 1978 by Jaya Arunachalam in Madras (Chennai). The WWF aims to empower poor women in southern India by providing microcredit, a trade union, health care and training. It works with the poor women working in the informal sector, such as street vendors, silkworm growers and silk weavers, handicraft producers, washerwomen and fisherwomen.[1][2][3][4][5]
7,00,000 plus women have been brought together through WWF through the issue of credit and other services were also added such as that of child care, family planning, and education.[6]
One of the main reasons for women to join the WWF is to receive access to credit, since the amount of credit they receive is higher than that of informal lending, along with a reasonable interest rate.[7]
There are two organisations closely related to the WWF:[8]
- Indian Co-operative Network for Women (ICNW) Archived 21 February 2020 at the Wayback Machine, provides loans
- National Union of Working Women (NUWW), a trade union
The WWF follows strong ideological positions as follows;
Pro Women: Exclusively catering to women of the informal sector who provide support to their families and welfare.
Anti-Dowry: To eradicate the practice of dowry through mass demonstration against such practices involving rape and divorce.
Anti-Caste and Pro-Secularism: Supporting women regardless of their castes and religious beliefs and inter-caste weddings.
Anti-Politics: Avoiding involving the areas related to political parties and agendas.
- ^ Haviland, Charles (23 August 2002). "Empowering the women of Madras". BBC News. Retrieved 21 August 2009.
- ^ Boustany, Nora (6 May 2005). "A Lifelong Champion Of India's Poorest Women". The Washington Post. p. A20. Retrieved 21 August 2009.
- ^ Venkatesan, D. (5 June 2005). "Fight against poverty". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2009.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ Ekins, Paul (1992). A new world order: grassroots movements for global change. Routledge. pp. 118–122. ISBN 0-415-07115-1. Retrieved 21 August 2009.
- ^ Haynes, Jeffrey (2002). Politics in the developing world: a concise introduction (2 ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 202–203. ISBN 0-631-22556-0. Retrieved 21 August 2009.
- ^ "The Economic Empowerment of Women- The case of Working Women's Forum". S2CID 73721057.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|url=(help) - ^ "Working Women's Forum". www.gdrc.org. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
- ^ "Mission & Profile". WWF Website. Retrieved 21 August 2009.