In August and September I had my first field missions: 3 weeks in India and one week in Indonesia. Hectic but very interesting! I arrived in Mumbai on the 20th of August and then travelled south to Kerala and Bangalore, where I attended the ITUC seminar, the international trade union confederation – the new international umbrella organisation of the trade unions. In Mumbai and Kerala (see photo: team in Kerala) I met with NDWM and the Migrant Forum, 2 organisations that work for better rights of domestic workers and migrants. Many of them are exploited, get extremely low salaries and are treated very badly by their bosses. It was a real eye opener to see one of our partners in their daily routine. 
After India, I left straight away for Jakarta (I was in Manila for 6 hours) to attend the seminar of one of the garment federations we will support in the new program. One of the objectives is to strengthen partners in the clean clothes campaign (CCC) – a campaign set up to raise awareness on labour circumstances in the garment and textile industry and the seminar held in Jakarta was an ideal opportunity to talk to that specific garment federation, talk to other Indonesian partners, meet with the sub regional coordination and discuss the tsunami program WSM has. Again a very busy week but it was great fun.
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