This website is the outcome of a networking grant awarded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) in December 2018. The title of the grant was ‘Network for the development of participatory methods to investigate current and alternative livelihoods with bidi workers in South India’. Article 17 of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is the provision of support for economically viable alternative activities to tobacco. It has been poorly implemented worldwide. The South Asian bidi (leaf cigarette, also spelt ‘beedi’) is produced by some of the most marginalized groups in the subcontinent. It is predominantly a cottage industry involving ‘bidi barons’, contractors and home-based bidi workers (‘rollers’). Most of them are women although children are also involved. Rollers’ livelihoods are precarious and workers are extremely vulnerable to exploitation. Their voices are rarely heard in discussions concerning their current circumstances, the health costs of bidi production, or their aspirations for the future. The aim of our network was to change this, by bringing together academic and non-academic expertise in tobacco control and participatory research methods through research involving groups and individuals in two large bidi rolling areas in northern Tamil Nadu, India – Tirupattur (home of the D Arul Selvi Rehabilitation Trust) and Vellore (location of Christian Medical College and its Low Cost Effective Care Unit – LCECU – which aims to bring health and health care to disadvantaged groups in and around the city). Bidi rollers’ employment conditions are a primary determinant of many of the health and wellbeing problems they and their families face. We hope that our network starts a process whereby bidi workers themselves become agents of change, developing more secure and sustainable forms of libelihood in order to improve their current situation. Please click on the ‘Research’ tab to find out more about our work. The ‘Information’ tab gives more insight into bidi work in general.