Mehnat Manzil: Museum of Work is an initiative envisioned and brought into being by the Saath Charitable Trust based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat in collaboration with Conflictorium: Museum of Conflict. Mehnat Manzil celebrates the informal sector workers’ lives and brings to light the realities we inhabit: from migration and livelihood to housing and infrastructure. Its focus will remain the limitless hope and spirit with which we overcome our struggles and build lives; although it will also be the site for an interrogation of the societal structures that give rise to informality, and the kinds of problems and injustices that it reproduces.

Mehnat Manzil aims to provide a space where those of us that inhabit the informal domain may have our own stories heard and triumphs celebrated, while also coming to gain insights into how our lives figure into larger societal structures and their mechanisms. Conversely, a space where those who are privileged enough to be oblivious of these issues may come to appreciate how vital is the contribution made to society by informal work. Where they may see the complexity of the problems that are involved, and dispel pre-formed and misleading notions about their nature.