All ILO Voices stories
ILO Voices | Skills training
How I overcame gender discrimination in my construction job
Despite bullying and male colleagues telling her to get a job elsewhere, Myrna Pitaluna-Alngog has stuck to her work in construction, developed her skills, and is now a successful supervisor in Cebu City in the Philippines.
ILO Voices | Apprenticeships
As a refugee, my new skills have given my family hope
When her husband was killed in 2009, Angelique Kahindo fled the Democratic Republic of Congo with her children to a refugee settlement in Uganda. For years she had no income, but a new opportunity for an apprenticeship has given her the skills and...
ILO Voices | Disability inclusion
I'm ripping up the myths about disability
Alfredo Carrasco lost the use of his legs after a biking accident. Determined to return to his love of farming, he found ways to make his family’s farm in Chile more accessible, while also helping other farmers working with a disability.
ILO Voices | Women’s empowerment
Education empowered me to fight for women’s rights in Kenya
When Mary Nkisonkoi was given an opportunity to advocate for women’s rights in her Maasai community, she aimed high and now represents women’s community groups across the Great Rift Valley in Kenya.
ILO Voices | Women in management
When a woman becomes boss in a man's world
Entrepreneur, Takhmina Bakhronova, is the first woman to break into the male-dominated taxi business in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe.
ILO Voices | Local economic development
We won’t need to beg for water anymore
Yasin Muhumad Faarah, an Ethiopian farmer, lost all his cattle in a recent drought. Without a regular supply of water, his future livelihood and that of other members of the community was in jeopardy. Together they built a water collection basin...
ILO Voices | Child labour
The mica dust made me sick, I’m glad to be back at school
When Suman Kumari was 13 her father became ill and the family fell into debt. When COVID-19 hit and with creditors at the door, she joined her mother at her workplace processing mica, a mineral dust used in cosmetics, paints and electronics. An ILO...
ILO Voices | Rural economy
Entrepreneur turns problems into profit
When COVID-19 hit, Merima Kukić Gego’s future looked bleak. Her traineeship had ended and her options in rural Bosnia and Herzegovina looked like unemployment or migration. But instead she found the drive to start a food and tourism business,...
ILO Voices | Recognition of prior learning
Failing in school is not failing in life
After 25 years of on-the-job experience as a welder in Zanzibar, Tanzania, 53-year-old Hussein Juma Hassan had his skills formally recognized. The certification process has helped him realise the value of his skills and also increased his income....
ILO Voices | Care economy
I am not a madman, I am an early childhood teacher
Federico Trotta has overcome prejudice and stigma to become an early childhood teacher in Buenos Aires, Argentina – a profession that many believe is a “feminine” career.
ILO Voices | Domestic workers
I am fighting against abusive domestic work
Myriam Raharilantosoa became a defender of Malagasy migrant domestic workers after finding out about the abuse suffered by her daughter at the hands of employers in Lebanon.
ILO Voices | Tourism
An indigenous entrepreneur in tune with Mother Earth
After successfully reclaiming her people’s territory in Quebrada de Humahuaca, Northern Argentina, Celestina Ábalos turned to tourism to share and promote her indigenous culture. ILO entrepreneurship training during the COVID-19 pandemic helped her...
ILO Voices | Tourism recovery
How my tourism business survived COVID-19
When COVID-19 struck Indonesia, Dekha Dewandana’s previously thriving ‘homestay’ tourism business was pushed to the verge of collapse. With the support of the International Labour Organization (ILO), his business survived and grew.
ILO Voices | Local economic development
War in Sri Lanka took everything but I made a new start
Displaced by Sri Lanka’s civil war, Veronica Rosani Susilkumar is making a new life for herself and her family as a groundnut farmer.
ILO Voices | Domestic workers
Domestic workers need social protection too
What motivates someone to advocate for workers’ rights? Meet Champa, head of a network of migrant domestic workers, who lives and works in Thailand.
ILO Voices | Child labour
I had to stop school and go to work because of COVID-19
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the city of Mosul in Iraq, Akram’s parents lost their income and livelihood. Akram dropped out of school to help support his family by collecting and selling scrap metal. An ILO project has helped him return to...
ILO Voices | Social and solidarity economy
Our cooperative has dignified the work of waste pickers
Twenty-two years ago, Martha Elena Iglesias helped found a waster picker cooperative in Colombia called Planeta Verde. Over time, the cooperative has transformed how the local community views waste pickers and a sense of solidarity has developed...
ILO Voices | Green jobs
An apprenticeship changed my life
When war broke out in Yemen, the factory where Muhammad Taher Muhammad al-Tahri worked shut down. His job search was going nowhere, until he joined an apprenticeship programme in solar panel maintenance and installation.
ILO Voices | Child labour
A child should go to school, not to work
Domboué Nibéissé was 9 years old when he stopped going to school and started to work in the cotton fields in Burkina Faso. Difficult and tiring work, two years later he was given an opportunity to return to school.
ILO Voices | Disaster recovery
How work gave me purpose after Beirut blast
On August 4, 2020, large parts of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, were devastated by a massive explosion in the port. For Hani Baltaji, the rebuilding of a municipal police station has not only helped towards Beirut’s recovery, but also his own.