A digital storytelling platform is giving voice to women migrant workers by documenting the challenges faced by them in Mumbai during Covid-19
A still from one of the video stories on the site
Narratives of female migrant workers are often unexplored, believe Bhavya Gupta, Neeraj Shetye and Mithila Naik-Satam — the trio behind Unheard Voices, a digital storytelling platform. It was created to showcase real-life experiences of Mumbai’s women migrant workers, presenting various systemic challenges they have had to overcome during the pandemic, in the form of video stories.
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Bhavya Gupta, Neeraj Shetye and Mithila Naik-Satam
The idea was prompted in 2020 with designer and the then-student of Parsons School of Design, Gupta’s thesis project, which won her the Schmidt Futures Reimagine Challenge Grant. Gupta, who was passionate about working on projects that dealt with social causes and representing her South-Asian identity in the States, joined hands with relief organisation Khaana Chahiye’s members Shetye and Naik-Satam. Soon after winning the grant, the project was developed into what it is today.
“I’ve worked with Shetye for over six years on various projects. I reached out to him last year when Khaana Chahiye was established in March. Since I was stuck here in the US, I wanted to contribute to help those back home, in which ever way I could as a designer. So, I began helping him out with a few design elements such as brochures and some social media work. When the time came to think about the thesis for my MFA [in Design and Technology] and since I was more inclined to work on projects relating to social issues and impacts, I decided to join hands with Shetye and Khaana Chahiye,” reveals Gupta.
The platform was also created in support of the organisation’s policy intervention initiative, Hunger Map. “With Hunger Map, we didn’t want to do a traditional policy brief and recommendations; we wanted to do something different. We were looking into the prospect of a new way of digital storytelling to present our observations and bring out suggestions using design and technology,” adds Mumbai-based Shetye.
The trio has interviewed women from communities at Reay Road in these videos, and their faces have been covered with a creative illustration, allowing the stories to speak for them. “There’s a gap that exists between technology and many communities in our system. What stands out in what Gupta has captured here is that the stories are told through the voices of the women, giving them a sense of dignity and anonymity. Although we have their consent to show their faces, we haven’t,” Naik-Satam says.
The women reside behind the factories and mills next to the century-old railway station. The stories highlight their socio-economic constraints and how the pandemic worsened the same. For instance, in one of the stories, a cancer survivor reveals how she had to survive on relief aid throughout the lockdown, after losing her job. “These are unregulated slums that authorities aren’t interested in developing because these residents don’t have voter IDs, and relief aid also doesn’t reach them,” explains Shetye.
However, despite their difficult situation, the women voice their aspirations, especially for their children. In one video, a woman shares that she hopes to provide quality education to her children, something that she didn’t receive. The videos have been shot in a horizontal template. The site flows horizontally, as opposed to the vertical scroll that is the common view. In the coming months, the trio plans to share similar stories from more communities on the site.
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