Accra, Ghana: Informal head porter worker, or kayayei, Daina Otoo sells fish at Agbogbloshie market. By negotiating with key health policymakers with the help of Wiego, kayayei have been able to register and gain access to health care services through the Ghanaian National Insurance Scheme.

Ahmedabad, India: Narmada Ben conducts a survey in her neighbourhood, checking the electricity output from various houses in her block under a slum networking programme. She received training from the Self-Employed Women’s Association and Mahila Housing Trust to do city development surveys and she earns 180 rupees per day.

Vanderbijlpark, South Africa: Liberia Mapesmoawe (left) and Justina Mokoena (right) are waste pickers on the Boitshepi landfill in South Africa and members of the growing Majakathatha Cooperative. They sort through what the municipal and private trucks dump there, looking for valuable recyclables which they sell to a middleman. This provides them with an income and reduces the volume of waste buried in the landfill. The coop is fighting to have the price of recyclables regulated so that waste pickers receive fair payment for the glass, metal, plastic and paper they remove from the landfill.

Lima, Peru: Luzmila Elba Rojas Morales is president of the Asociación 20 de Junio, which has 150 members and is part of the National Network of Women and Men Self-employed Workers (Red Nacional de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores Autoempleados, Renatta). She has always been good with numbers, but now she is very interested in learning marketing skills and how to use a computer.

Bangkok, Thailand: Viboonsri Wongsangiym and her husband, Bang Aree make their living by producing garments at home. They belong to the informal worker organisation HomeNet Thailand, an association of informal workers who have officially registered as a garment home-based worker group. As a legal entity, the cooperative has broadened the workers’ opportunity to get work orders, and more importantly, strengthened a union of home-based workers.

Accra, Ghana: Informal worker Iris Lamiorkor at her snack stand at Circle market. Unlike other vendors who sell during the day, Iris works in the late afternoon and evening, targeting the post-business day rush of commuters who travel through Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Accra’s largest transport hub. Over the years, Iris has evolved from selling credit to school bags and ladies bags to selling small snacks, constantly working to identify the best goods to tap into consumer demands. She belongs to the Kwame Nkrumah Marke taffiliate of the Ghana Trade Union Congress.

Bogata, Colombia: Nohra Padilla Herrera is the executive director of the Asociación de Recicladores de Bogotá (ARB). Nohra and the ARB have been at the helm of the waste pickers’ 20-year struggle for recognition and inclusion in Colombia. Nohra was instrumental in the legal actions that resulted in a body of pronouncements by the Constitutional Court of Colombia ordering the inclusion and remuneration of waste pickers. She is also the leader of the national association of waste pickers, the Asociación Nacional de Recicladores (ANR) and continues to fight for the rights of all waste pickers.

Ahmedabad, India: Bhavna Ben Ramesh makes handmade purses at home and belongs to the Self-Employed Women’s Organisation, a trade union that works to secure the rights of workers in the informal economy. She also receives support from the Mahila Housing Trust who work with home-workers, explaining how they can earn while working at home and where to sell their products.

Johannesburg, South Africa: Laundry, cooking, and cleaning are all part of Martha Mahlala’s tasks as a domestic worker in the household where she has worked for 23 years. However, she prefers gardening to housework, and her green thumb is evident around her employer’s house. She lives in a small cottage on her employer’s premises. Her own house is hours away, and like many domestic workers in this city, she travels home just once a month.