From ragpicker to speaker in Geneva conference

Suman Morersquos life has been a ragstorecognition journey As an illiterate impoverished ragpicker from Pune the 50yearold could never have imagined that she would one day be the centre of attention at a conference held all the way in Geneva by the International Labour Organisation Just the past fortnight over 2000 experts from all over the world listened enthralled as she spoke about her work and the challenges she and many like her faced in finding acceptance and a voice in societyAlso read How a chaiwallah became a web developerSuman More at the event in GenevaldquoI thought it was just us ragpickers who were not treated properly but during the conference I learnt about many other people ndash like hairstylists and weavers ndash who were also struggling to find their voicerdquo said Suman who has spent the past 37 years collecting and sorting wasteNo trash talk More who has managed to put all her kids through school uses the money she now earns through ragpicking to support the education of underprivileged children PicAkshay PacharneldquoThere were more than 2000 people from across the world and I was the only one in a sari The most difficult issue was sitting in the air conditioned room as I am not used to it But I managed Everyone appreciated me and the Indian culture and the next day they even tried on my sarisrdquo she addedAt the 104th session of the International Labour Conference held from June 1 to 13 Suman was one of the esteemed speakers invited to speak about her work to an elite gathering of experts and leaders from around the world This is starkly different from the past when she could not even find a job as a cleaner or labourer because of her caste and was harassed for being a ragpickerSuman has been collecting waste for 37 years and has managed to put all her kids through school Now even though her children tell her to stop ragpicking she continues to do it and donates her salary to provide education to other underprivileged kidsSuman hails from Kalamb village in Usmanabad district where her parents would work in farms for daily wages When a drought hit the village however jobs began drying up and Suman and her family moved to Pune in search of work Her husband was from the potraj community a tribe of nomads and would barely gather enough alms to provide one meal a day Suman was refused jobs on account of her caste and eventually began picking up waste like iron rods and other scrap material to eke out a living After collecting scrap for nine hours she would make barely R3040 a day far short of what was needed to keep a family of six afloatSuman More her husband and their childrenrsquos families all live in a tworoom house that used to be a shanty but was recently renovated PicsAkshay PacharneldquoI came to Pune so we could beat the hunger we had experienced in our village But it was hard we couldnrsquot find jobs because of out caste so I started collecting waste Later I realised that if the scrap is segregated properly it can fetch a better pricerdquo Suman recalledWatch videoVideo courtesy YouTubeYears later this same lesson would come into play when ragpickers joined hands with the local municipality to manage the cityrsquos waste Instead of the corporation collecting and moving the garbage to waste management centres ragpickers from across the city do the task both faster and more economically Since this tieup life has become smoother for waste collectors who faced great harassment from citizens and the police in the early daysldquoWhile picking up the waste many a time people use to complain or call us thieves and we were dragged to the police station for no reason Many a time the police used to humiliate us as wellrdquo said Suman adding that things began to improve after activists set up the organisation Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat KKPKP to fight for ragpickersrsquo rights Where wastepickers would earn about R2040 a day in the past they now earn R5000 a month are accorded more respect and are even provided with identity cards to help them do their jobs with dignitySuman wanted to ensure her children never had to meet the same fate and scrimped and saved to put her kids through schoolldquoI was illiterate but I did not want my children to have a similar life so I worked day and night and we skipped one meal a day to make sure they went to schoolrdquo she said proudly adding that of her four kids one is a journalist with a double Masters degree another is a graduate preparing for the civil services exams a third son is a Bcom student while her daughter is marriedAlthough her children are now doing well and the family even owns an apartment in Pune they continue to live in Sumanrsquos old home in Gultekdi a shanty that has now been converted to a brickandmortar tworoom houselsquoProud of herrsquoSumanrsquos daughterinlaw Shweta who teaches at a Pune college said ldquoWe all tell Aai Suman not to work as we are earning well but she tells us her work gives her joy All her salary is used to support the education for underprivileged kids in the slum areas and she personally visits them to ensure they go to school I am proud of herrdquo