UNNATEA: The Tea Workers App

UNNATEA: The Tea Workers App

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Oxfam India has been working for tea plantation workers in Assam so that they can access their rights, attain improved living conditions and wages, and live a life of dignity. UNNATEA is one more step in our endeavour.

The App UNNATEA, created in collaboration with IIIT (Hyderabad), is now live and this will be a single access point for all stakeholders of the Assam tea industry to provide information, and raise concerns and issues related to workers living conditions and other schemes which are mandated by the state as well as the central government.

This web portal will have information about:

1. Existing laws and programmes pertaining to tea workers.
2. Acts, government schemes, circulars and notifications related to the industry.
3. Processes of applying to various schemes, and the latest updates/news related to the workers.
4. Issues and concerns raised by the stakeholders visible to relevant authorities.

It will also enable communication among and between all the stakeholders of the Assam tea industry through the following processes:

1. Enable workers to raise queries and concerns related to their work, facilities and entitlements, and other such provisions as laid down in schemes and the law.
2. Provide real time information to all workers, management and government authorities regarding concerns/queries raised; and also measures taken towards the latter.
3. Encourage workers to share relevant information with other co-workers and build their capacities as well.  Special emphasis should be on allowing access to women workers and help them raise their specific concerns without depending on others.
4. Disseminate information related to health issues such as COVID-19.

About the App

This platform is a digital one, in the form of a web portal; it is mobile friendly as well. The platform is expected to cover worker issues ranging from healthcare, education, entitlements and benefits as laid down in the Plantation Labour Act which governs the industry. The platform will directly benefit the tea garden workers in terms of relevant information and connecting them to various stakeholders. It will also allow management and government authorities to track and engage with workers in a seamless and timely manner.

Over 100 volunteers will be trained to further train the workers to use the app. The concerns of the workers will be registered in the app and will be stored in the dashboard. Reports will be obtained quarterly and necessary actions will be taken thereafter.

Oxfam India has been working with the tea plantation worker community in Assam since November 2019 to strengthen labour rights for tea plantations workers. The overall objective of the project is to ensure that the tea plantation workers, especially women, are able to live a life of dignity with their rights being respected by tea companies and protected by the state.

Another objective of this project is to achieve increased wages and improved living conditions of tea plantation workers through the effective realisation of rights and entitlements in alignment with the Protect, Respect and Remedy framework of the United Nations Guiding Principles on business and human rights. Oxfam India is working in 7 districts of Assam - Biswanath, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Lakhimpur, Tezpur, Golaghat and Sivasagar.

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